PAPAKURA VALLEY HIGHWAY TRUSTEES

New Zealand Herald, Volume IV, Issue 1189, 5 September 1867, Page 3

PAPAKURA VALLEY HIGHWAY TRUSTEES

(fbom our own cobbeopondent.) Ah advertisement having appeared calling upon tha ratepayers of the district to attend at the School House in the Valley if they, wished' to make their . appeal against a rate just levied, a' number of the ratepayers did bo, not for tho.purpose of making an appeal, hut to prot altogether against the illegal ■ levying of a rate v !i ,li tho- trustees, in their simplicity, thought tiiuy had full power to do. It appears . one of the landholders in the Valley was requested some time ago to wait , upon the DeputySuperintendent to request him to appoint: oertain gentlemen, for the rest of the year, to' act as trustees, for the purpose of repairing the bridges and forming the roads where they were in a very.. dangerous state. There being a balance in the hank of-£65, and a considerable 'amount of rates in arrear to collect. These matters have "been done; . and there the trustees should have stopped, but they • then.set to and made a rate of sixpence per sere, which was: out of all character, as the annual meeting will take place the first day of October, for tha ' purpose of electing trustees and levying a rate for the ensuing year." The roads from the Great South : Road, right through the valley, are in a very'bad state, and require an immense amount of money laid out upon them, and they most certainly need revising, so that instead of, in places, passing through "private : properties, where tho trustees are in the position to< hove their roads closed, from any little caprice er whim of the owner of the lands, they ought to have roads so recognized by the Government, that at any time, they are free to all ; and when improved and the public money spent upon them, tho public may know they are their own. It is in this matter of roads that our country is so kept back; we all know that tha people who poaseg? lands (i£ they are good for anything) would cultivate them and go upon them, it is impossible for the people of Auckland, and the people "who continually come into it to live there; they must get out into the country. There is no choice in this matter but'' Hobson'n choice" with many, and every acre o£ land which is brought under cultivation is a boon inestimable to tho country; and if bo in the minimum ratio, how much more must it bo ip the maximum. It would bo better if the Government were to make tho roads diverging from the two main arteries, . and south, and put on toll-bars at certain ■ distances; for I am suro it would* be money well apont to havo a toll - bar evary six

miles or oven four mile 3 in such districts as tho valleys of Papakura, Wairoa, or from Drury to Mauku or Wniuku. Tho less the impediments to transit and locomotion, tho greater the facility of communication from ono town or villago to tho other, tho greater the traffic, and thousands would, at tho present time, avail themselves of their intended homes in tho bush and tho country, could they but see the possibility of getting to and from thom with their moans of sustenance and produce, which they would ultimately realize by their labour.