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Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 21, 2 January 1907, Page 7

Sir, —I see in your issue of December 11th that Councillor Thomas goe3 redhot for “ Waipapakauri ” and says it is stabbing a man in the dark using a nom dc plume. I can assure Councillor Thomas that L shall not use a nom de I dame this time,, although his friend has done so by signing himself “Waihopo” when he does not live there. Now, Councillor Thomas is blowing bis trumpet very loud. He has also put out a challenge. I take it up and he can put all the blame on me. Councillor Thomas says he brought before the Council the state of the Awanui Bridge. He knew well the residents had sent in a petition months before to Wellington and they were promised £ for £ on the strength of it and the help of the M.H.R. Councillor Thomas says that £3OO was spent on the Awanui, West Coast and Unahi roads and that the late member took very good care that it was spent there as he had been the .means of getting the money. That money jtas done justice to under the supervision of Mr. Watts—not Councillor Thomas. Now for Councillor Thomas. What has been done with the £IOO for WaihareraJ? He says he started at Waipapakauri through Paparore, Kaikino, Waiharera and Kaimaumnu. »Six miles from Waipapakauri is Kaikino —he spent about £lO there; thence to Kaimaumau, a distance of seven miles, half that is unsurveyed road—nothing done on it, and I defy any man to find much work done at Kaimaumau. We will now get on the unsurveyed roads. There is a bridge built on the Stony Crossing (by a man that did not know too much about bridge building) which cost £35 and was built in two days. I hope Councillor Thomas will acknowledge he did not know the value of a bridge when he let the contract or he would not have paid so much County money away and got so little work for it. There is about £l9 more spent at Kaikino. From there to to J. P. Mackintosh’s place, say seven or eight miles, has been a track to my knowledge for many years, and a good bridle track. Councillor Thomas took ratepayers’ money and spent on that line or track and left surveyed roads with nothing done to them and in winter it is a quagmire. Councillor Thomas is shedding tears for the little ones and would, if possible, give them an asphalt footpath if he had the handling of the money to be spent, on the roads—and their s was one of them; but Councillor Thomas is using Irish hospitality—cutting your head and then giving you a plaster, and I suppose he will do the work when the rates come in. That should not be long now. Now Houhora. £l5O for some small side cuttings, repairing culverts and making one new bridge and two or three culverts ; about three miles of ti-tree cutting, £ls. The next is Adams’ and Warren’s road. Before Councillor Thomas was a County Member arrangements were made with the owncr-s to pay them compensation and they also wanted a surveyor to survey the road. The County finances were low and they could not pay the compensation until they got the funds. The late member got £650 for roads and bridges north of Awanui bridge. That gave the County a chance to pay compensation out of rates, and Councillor Thomas got on to the Council to lay it out; but in reading Councillor Thomas’s version you would think he had done it all himself. I must allow Adams and Warren fenced their road off years ago and I travelled the road and had no trouble with them, as I always shut the gate. Now the £IOO for Parenga. Starting at Waihopo (this should be Houhora, as 40 miles is too far to run) for Parenga there was a ditch cleaned out and the earth put on the side of the ditch. Why the earth was not put on the road is like a Bengal sausage—a mystery. I told Councillor Thomas that he should spend at least £SO on Mrs. Tynan’s load. It was in a very bad state and had just been taken over by the County Council. We then go to Bomoa hill. That cutting cost £4 10 - with two days’ work between there and Te Kao hill—l2 miles. There cutting again I think £6 10/-. We go from there to Parenga—2s miles. Mr. Thomas drew a specification out for a bridge, cost £34, and ordered the bridge to be built to his specification. It was done so, and was floating down the harbour a few days after (not Councillor Thomas—l mean the bridge). I deny that the money was spent to the best advantage, and it was not spent on the works the money was got for. North of Waipap. a deal of money has been spent on unsurveyed roads tliat was not necessary, and now Councillor Thomas I pick up your challenge—you to resign and go to the poll again, and the loser to pay all expenses of the bye-election, although you have acted the part of the unjust steward, and, quoting your own words, the ratepayers are quite competent to judge between us. I’ll give you further facts and figures later on.—l remain, yours etc., JOSEPH EVANS. December 18, 1906.