COUNTRY NEWS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 772, 17 December 1886, Page 19

COUNTRY NEWS.

PAHIATUA.

[FROM OUR own CORRESPONDENT.) December 5.

There has been no movement of any importance lately. Several important new buildings are near completion, and a number of sections in the south end have been bought by genuine people. Money is very tight, and on mortgage almost unobtainable on even really good security. This is a pity, as it retards progress. There are great complaints about the road —the great main road—from Ekatahuna to Woodville. I wonder whether Ministers ever read letters from such a humble person as I am ? This road was engineered. It is beautifully graded and well metalled, but too narrow ; the metal is about nine feet wide. In riding, if I meet a coach, I always climb up out of the way. To overtake a coach and pass it, one has to select a wide place. Consequently the increased traffic has cut the road to pieces. I do not pretend to understand the war that is raging between various Hoad Boards, County Councils, and the Government, but I say that as the traffic is now large, the Government ought to widen the road and then hand it over. There are great complaints, too, that from Pahiatua southward a narrow strip of land on the east side of the road is “ waste” and not owned really by either brown or white men. It is twelve miles long and only about a quarter of a mile wide. The actual money value is, say, three square miles at LiIOOO a mile. It ought to be taken for public purposes under some Act at a price of L3OOO. It would not matter how long it took to apportion the L3OOO among possible claimants. Why do we want the land taken ? Because this narrow strip absolutely shuts out the back settlements, which reach eight miles back from the main road. Once

knock down thiß belt of bush, and the whole road from Eketahuna to Pahiatua would be fringed with houses, stores, hotels, post offices, and the like. I went down to Eketahuna the other day by coach ; there were 39 other passengers —how is that for traffic?—yet I don’t believe two out of the 39 suspected that, as we swept through the forest aisles of virgin bush, we were all the time within coo-ey of,quite large settlements on the east side of the road.

There are complaints also (I hate always grunting) that the railway is not being taken near Pahiatua. Now, Sir, why cannot we have a plain official report with maps ? I know it is “only L 150,000,” but still that is something, and we are very uneasy. You see, every holder of land wants th 9 railway near hia section, and there is a great clamor, while the bulk of the community simply wish to be assured that the country has been carefully surveyed and the best route chosen.

More complaints ! The road through the township is three chains wide. This is not our. fault. The Government laid it off ten years ago. Well; our Town Board simply cannot metal and repair such a width. Consequently a delegation from the Town Board interviewed Messrs Richardson and Ballance with a view to narrowing the road. Could the Town Board narrow it to one and a half chains? One Minister said yes and the other no. The obvious course of consulting the proper legal advisers of the Crown does not seem to have occurred to these sapient Ministers. People hero are consequently denouncing Mr Ballance as a traitor, and asserting that he is purposely starving Pahiatua in order to drive settlement into some fancy association of his own. Pending advice, our Town Board has taken the very hasty step of advertising tenders for clearing the main road three chains wide. I hear very encouraging reports as to the capacity of the land. One large holder assures me that his bush, now it is felled and grassed (not stumped, of course) will really carry four sheep to the acre right through the 1000 acres he has felled.