THE STRATFORD ROAD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10155, 11 June 1896, Page 4

THE STRATFORD ROAD.

The people in and about Stratford have done the right thing in getting the Auokland members of the Assembly to stop there, and listen to their complaint about the East Road. They took the precaution of presenting their complaint in the form of one of the dishes at a banquet, or perhaps of bringing it forward after those assembled had been worked up into a condition of genial enthusiasm by the drinking of the loyal toasts. The East Road, we may m on ' tion, is that road which extends from Stratford to the line of railway, & considerable amount of land has been taken up along that road, the country being good. The settlers are certainly modest in merely pleading with the Government for the construction of a road. They have a right to a railway. This Ministry are in a peculiar position. They have said so often that they are the only people who have pushed on the work of settlement that they have persuaded the public to believe it. We venture to say that any other Ministry would have had this East Road made long ago, seeing the paramount claims which can be put forward on its behalf. It is through good country, where settlement is going on, and where the settlers are struggling against many disadvantages. It is really a main trunk road, and would be the means of affording overland communication wit! Auckland. Any other Ministry woulc have considered it their duty to make ■it, and would not have thought them selves entitled to any praise for the work. The present gentlemen in ottice do very little towards it, and claim a? much credit as if they had done it. They cannot do everything. And if they launch into fancy schemes of buying land in Otago and Canterbury, and spending all their available funds in "roading" blocks which are already provided with main road*, and which are in infinitely better position in re gard to communications than the laud between Stratford and the railway they have nothing to spare for the North Island. Ministers have also to provide money for experimental farms, and for the maintenance and working; of all their precious labour measures. The Auckland members will, we trust, keep the Stratford banquet in mind, anc insist upon Ministers patting money on the Estimates to have the road constructed.