ROADING THE NORTH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15847, 18 February 1915, Page 4

ROADING THE NORTH

The great difficulty against 'which settlement has to contend is the woeful ignorance concerning the back blocks prevalent among the multitudes who live comfortably within the urban areas lighted by gas and served by side-walks. Whatever party is in power, and whatever government holds office, this dense and fog-like ignorance impedes settlement and progress by preventing a concentration of national energy upon the improvement of communication in the back blocks. This has made it possible for successive governments to squander millions upon the Midland Railway and the Otira Tunnel, while the great settlement railways of the North Island have been starved and neglected, and to rest content with spending yearly a few hundred thousand pounds upon country roading which called for at least as many millions. Those who exert themselves, with greater knowledge, to bring the pressing needs of the country to the actual understanding of dwellers in the cities do a very great work for the state. Bishop Cleary, therefore, deserves public gratitude for his strenuous advocacy of the rural cause and his convincing plea for country roading, through an interview appearing in to-day's Herald. The bishop speaks particularly of the North of Auckland, where the needs arc notorious and the roading scandalous, but the same general proposition as to the value and urgency of roads applies to every country district unprovided with roads practicable for transit throughout the year. Roads and railways that will make land settlement possible under reasonable conditions are so necessary that they should be a first charge upon the domestic expenditure of the Dominion.