COUNTRY ROADS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10409, 6 April 1897, Page 3

COUNTRY ROADS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib,—lα reading the Herald of a fen nays back I notice that a large surplus has been earned by the railways during the last year. While the railways are earning so much money do you not think that the Government might judiciously spend some in procuring some extra rolling stock, so as to enable them to cater for the wants of the public. Last yeai. I understand, orders were sent to the Railway Department for scoria for the WaitemaU County Council, to be spread on the main and other roads in the county riding. A quantity was sent in the early spring, and a start was made to get these cky roads into something like a passable condition before the winter sets in. But for the last four months nothing further has been done, and on makiug enquiries I am led to understand that the railway cannot supply the scoria owing to being ehort of trucks or other rolling plant. Now, Mr. Editor, do you think it good policy in the Government to ha amassing large surpluses while we poor struggling settlers will have to be wading through mud and slush up to our knees this approaching winter. I am _ sure if the powers that control this benighted county only could hear the anathemas that are hurled at their heads by some of us who when trying to get our goods to our homes get stuck fast in these quagmires, they would use some of these large "surpluses" in supplying the wants of whit our M.H.K.'s call the backbone of the country.—l am, etc., Waitemata,