RAILWAY MATTERS AT PAPARATA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XII, Issue 4271, 22 July 1875, Page 3

RAILWAY MATTERS AT PAPARATA.

After tho meeting of the Paparata Highway Board held on tho 17th was over, but before separating, Mr. Kerr, of Springfield, requested permission to address tho meeting on a very important matter to all present. As [ cannot follow that gentleman in his eloquent address, 1 merely give the pith. He said that where the railway station is situated at Drury it only benefited a few, bnt if situated where the railway crosses tho Great South Road, at this side of Drury, it would benefit a great many, but tho General Government declined to comply with the wishes of tho many, those were the inhabitants of tho Mateku and Paparata districts, and others. Ho would therefore, as the Government did not comply with their former request, ask the meeting to state their opinion as to the advisableness of petitioning tho Government through their representatives to the General Assembly, Messrs. Buekland and May, to have from the railway station at Drury, to the beginning of the Bombay Settlement, passing through the Makctu Vidley, surveyed, with a view of having a railway made through it, &c. A resolution to that effect having been put to the meeting it was carried unanimously, with applause. I may add that there is a splendid stone-quarry close to where it is proposed the terminus should be, and any quantity of firewood could be procured for the Auckland market, from the same neighbourhood.

At tbe last Session of the Provincial Council, our member, Mr. J. Crawford, jun., carried n resolution for a grant of £100 towards improving the road leading to Paparata from the liomuay settlement, and although nothing is done to it as yet, the retiring trustees having left it to the new Board to carry out the work, the present weather being unfavourable for road making, and road improving, still the good to be derived from it is beginning to shew itself already, some of the laud having changed hands from absentees to intending residents. It is to bo hoped that we will soon bava the pleasure of seeing our bush-looked neighbours driving out in smart looking traps, instead, of packhorses, stumbling oyor logs, wading through creeks and floundering through mud, as well as the solitary bachelors living there sharing their hearths with worthy partners, tho terrors of tho isolation of bush life to them being a thing of the past.—[Correspondent.]