THE RAGLAN AND WAIPA ROAD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XII, Issue 4297, 21 August 1875, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE RAGLAN AND WAIPA ROAD.

To the Editor of the Herald. Sir, —Some months ago I met Dr. Pollen at Rangariri, and interviewed him respecting the road from this locality to the Waikato. The honorable gentleman informed me that the Government were very anxious to make the road ; but then you see there is the native difficulty in the way. The same Dr. Pollen, when asked in his place in the legislative Council by the Hon. Henry Chamberlin the reason the road was not commenced, again fell back on the native difficulty. Subsequently, Mr. Chamberlin (no doubt like myself and most others knowing the native difficulty to be a perfect phantasm) pnshed theDr. completely in a corner by asking what tribes or portion of tribes comprised the socalled native difficulty. This was too much of a poser for even the learned Dr. to answer as I never remember seeing a reply. Now, I suppose, it is the same Dr. Pollen who has forsaken the native difficulty excuse as being no longer tenable ; now, when asked if the road in question is to be made, says " the Government considered they were not warranted in incurring the expenditure." How can the Dr. reconcile the two statements ? Instead of Dr. Pollen saying it is the calumnious letters of newspaper correspondents that injure our adopted home, it would be nearer the mark, I think, to say it was misgovernment that we suffer from, and its consequent heavy burthen of taxation. However unpalatable to the Dr. and his colleagues, many home truths are contained in some of the letters he allnded to. We have a land law framed for the purpose of encouraging bona fide settlement, whilst, at the same time, this is stultified by the want of even main roads leading to desirable localities with unlimited natural resources. The Waitetuna valley contains a large area of fine land suit-' able for the homes of any number of settlers, as well as the whole of the country from the dividing range of hills to the harbours on the West Coast. Sir D. McLean, when speaking of the change in government about to take place, says, " Are we going to allow the outiistricts to languish and suffer? Are they not the support and backbone of the towns?" They ought to be, sir; but without roads, it is impossible for them to be so. Now, sir, I think Dr. Pollen knows or cares little for this district; but I will inform the Dr. and his colleagues that we have a very large area of waste lands in this part of the province which it is the intention of the General Government to keep possession of to utilise locally—l trust, for the formation of roads.' So I hope, notwithstanding the honorable gentleman's reply to Mr. Chamberlin, that Government will see their way easily to make the road in question (and that without delay), which I look on as one of the most important _ in the North Island. The different Govera- , meats have wasted more money in surveys

hero than would make tho read to flay nothing of the£l,Goofor immigrants' cottagesfor ■jrhich no one applied) and which) it was naturally supposed, were to reccive the labourers that were to be placed on this road, instead of which they remain empty as a monument of OoTernment folly. This road is the main want of this district; we, and our children after us, will have to pay our share of the borrowed money, and are we to get nothing for it in return 7 If I mistake not, I remember hearing the Hon. Sir Julius Vogel say once on a public occasion that it was the intention of the Government to make a railway from Waikato to both Tauranga on the East Caast and Raglan on the West. Is this to precede the road ? If it is really the determination of the Government not to make this road, why, then, I think, tho least they can do, if we are not to have the privileges we Arc entitled to as British subjects and taxpayers, should be treat us as our sable neighbours, by exempting us from taxation with a liberal allowance of the necessaries of life or remove us all to a more favoured locality.— I am. &c., T. B. Hill. Aotea, August S, 1575.