HOW NORTHERN SETTLERS ARE TREATED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11825, 30 November 1901, Page 1 (Supplement)

HOW NORTHERN SETTLERS ARE TREATED.

———*■ [BY A DISGCSTKD NORTH K.P.N V.V..]

0.V1.Y one hundred miles from Auckland, us the crow flies, nestling under the hills overlooking mi expanse of water similar to a large lake, stretches the townlet of Kohukohu. Hokianga—population 300. It is 60 years old, and without any communication with Auckland by road. Most of your reader.\<;arill surely exclaim, " Is it possible. in a country with a Government like ours that openly boasts of looking so well after the interest of its people?"

Kohukohu was found 60 years ago by a settler and trader by the name of Russell, but up to the present day it has no communication with the south by road. The nearest point where a road is tit for summer and winter traffic can be discerned on the horizon from the beach at Kohukohu, this being the top of the saddle, at Okaihau —15 miles in a straight line from our town. Kohukohu is situated on the west bank of the Hokianga River, immediately at the junction of tne Mangamuka and Waihou streams, and so is really at the head of the Hokianga River, where it folks off into the before-mentioned streams, which drain some of the most fertile country in the North.

Kohukohu boasts of a good post and telegraph office, three very large and wellappointed general stores, carrying stock,of value from £1500 to £2000. each, . large hotel, three blacksmiths' shops, a machine shop, a watchmaker's shop, a butchery, a. cabinet-maker's factory, a bootmaker, three billiard saloons, two vineyards and vine manufactories, producing jointly about 2600 gallons of wine annually, a sawmill, one working men's club, a library and* readingroom, r, school (attendance 80 odd), a church, a public hall, and a Masonic hall. The resources of the district are manifold, but the quality of the land for cattle and sheep raising, combined with fruitgrowing, must surely be its greatest recommendation, to say nothing of minerals that will some day come to the front. All that is required to develop these valuable resources is railways and roads, In regard to fruitgrowing the district is destined to become the California and Rhine of New- Zealand.

To give the people in Auckland an idea of the shameful way we are treated in regard to communication with their city I will give a sketch of the present weekly mail route. Starting from Kohukohu on Wednesday night, the mail is conveyed to Horeke, the coach terminus. The reason the coach has to stop here is because the river rolls between, and it has been rolling between for sixty years, while 18 miles of road, via- Ti-tio, Umawera, and Waihou, to Okaihau, would connect us with a. good, sound road and Opua Wharf. Bay of Islands. Your readers will scarcely credit that fully one-third of the'peninsula nort of Auckland, and first-class grazing country at that, is kept almost uninhabited for want of only 18 miles of road that would not cost more than £5000 to make.

But to continue my description of the present mail route. The Royal Mail coach starts from Horeke on Thursday morning, and after being dragged through eight miles of mudholes in winter, or deep, dry ruts in summer, as the case may be. you come to a place in. the road where you have to alight while the Royal Mail coach and contractor and driver, Mr. T. Knox, goes through a gateway, trespasses on private property, and fords the .Utakura Creek, a dangerous mountain torrent, full of rocks and boulders, goes up the opposite bank for some distance, trespassing on another settler's property, and has to ford the creek again to get on what is called a road. In the meantime- the passengers have, cfter alighting, to foot it across 'a narrow ledge of rotten rock, about two feet wide, where the whole of the road for about, two chains went bodily into the creek about last July, and from that time to date nothing has been done to make the road good again. The mail contractor complained to the Postal Department, who informed him that he would have to repair the road at his own cost, which of course he does not see his way clear to do. We have been appealing to our member and Parliament for the last nine years to connect us by good sound road with the Bay of Islands, but with no avail. Apparently there is no value placed, on settlers anywhere in Hokianga district. However, I have diverged from my subject. This slip on the road remains' as it was, or rather the remain.? lie where they fell; and so, after crossing this ledge and walking some ten chains and regaining the coach, passengers re-encoach and start to grapple with the Utakura Hill, a gentle ascent of 1 in 5, that must have been surveyed some time in the forties, when they used to lay all the roads oft' on maps in the Survey Office. It traverses rocks and boulders for about a mile and a-half. If the coach has a very heavy mail the coachman respectfully requests yon to alight and stump it to the summit* which when gained is the spot indicated in the first part of this article that- can be discerned on the horizon from Kohukohu. Problem: If a. town of 300 people can develop itself out of the natural resources >f a district almost shut off from the outside world, what might it not lie capable of doing if loaded and railroaded? In conclusion. I may state that what is contained in this article are facts, and I challenge anyone to refute them. Kohukohu, Hokianga, November 26 1901.