MAIN TRUNK MUDDLERS.

NZ Truth, Issue 78, 15 December 1906, Page 5

MAIN TRUNK MUDDLERS.

Shameful Messing with Men's Money. Ghastly Roads— Towuships Isolated. Nice, addlcpated officials and engineers they have m charge of the uncompleted eighty miles of the Main Trunk Line between Taumaranui and Taihape. If the following stories, for absolute truth of which we do not vouch, are correct, for muddle-headed inefficiency, and crass/ fatuous, stupidity they certainly take the cake. Here is one which comes from Oio, about five miles from Raurimo, and which certainly merits investigation. A man, whose name is excluded at his own request, states that he has not yet been paid for five or six days work done for the Government over two years ago. The man, whose story seems worthy of credence, is scared of making any complaint for fear of vindictive retaliation at the hands pi tlie Government officials. He claims that he would be gradually frozen out by being put on more and more difficult cuttings until the climax was reached. He seems a respectable man of middle-age and has been able .to save enough out of his . navvy-earnings .*> %q /bring thisT wife and family from Sydney at his own expense. Here is another story which hails from Taihape, which is equally rich m its way. A knight of the pick and shovel there states that instead of petting paid on getting his timesheet and .quitting hia job he was put off until the next pay-day, and m the meantime had to run up a heavy board bill while he was idle m Taihape waiting for the .day of reckoning to arrive. But this is nothing compared with what follows. What must be thought of this for drivelling imbecility ? The navvy-gentleman, . it appears, hails from T in the South Island and when being taken on, gave his place of domicile, and an affirmative 'enquiry as to whether he was married. When pay-day arrived and the unfortunate wretch expected to receive the pay for which he had worked so hard, the chuckle-headed idiot of an official handed over a small pronortion of his pay, jocularly adding that the balance, the . statutory proportion, had been deducted and sent to his wife at a town m the South Island. He subsequently discovered that it had been forwarded to some mythical woman tearing the same name as himself and said to be residing, m that town. And this without any enrniiry as to whether she was this unfortunate man's wife or not. It may be iust casually mentioned that the riYjji's wife-, as a fact, is m Mexico. Up to date the money has not been retuined. For RANK, FLAGITIOUS INJUSTICE ANE FRENZIED MUDDLING these \w° cases certainly "bang Bana-gher, and foe banged the Devil !" Many and long are the complaints about the Wi-JMn which the eo-oper-at/ive system -has h^n operated on the unoomple tea section of the road. Some of these.den unciations have been voiced m a «tisconnected, inchoate but ,no ui&ertain style m the Auckland papers, as well as previously m these columns. There is abundant' ' favbi'ltisni! shown m- .the ■ allotment:; of ■#t^ih«s-^ahd work. The measurements of the stuff .are incorrectly and unliSstJjr Z&s%sa.'; < Some men are earning ten shillings and twelve and sixpence, while others can barely make two and sixpence a day. The provisions are exorbitantly high. Storekeepers are unduly exactinir. Such is the burden of the complaints. It appears that the three engineers whom' the Government so loudly bray about employing m the limited area yet uncompleted are classified by the men thus c One is colorless,' one is a good fellow, but the other, the Raurimo, Oio, man is a son of Belial. It is stated by a man who has just walked here from Auckland that from the appearance of things on the section from Rauimo to O'hakune, the. apparent state of progress, etc., it would seem impossible to complete the road m less than four years time, though sanguine estimators have set its completion at two years hence. The Makatote viaduct looks only just comm^niced. Whole gorges and ravines have to be filled m. As for the wa?s[on roads from the viaduct to Oha,kivne, and from Ohakune to Karioi, they are ineffably awful, simply lakes of mud. . : ATROCIOUS TRACTS OF SHIV-ERY-SHAKING MORASS. It is alleged that o*nly a few weeks ago waggons and drays w«re sinking up to the axles, horses up to their necks, drays capsized, loads upset, whole teams almost submerged m the liquid, gluey mud and having to be cut loose from their harness so as to permit of their floundering to safety again on terra flrma. These are events of almost daily occurence. Even m the correspondence of our Auckland contemporaries the ominous dread is expressed that unless something is done and that at once, Ohakune, the rising little saw-mill town on the margin of the primeval forest will be completely isolated this winter. A nice state of things truly ! This is not all. The Govvernment seems to pay little attention, to the wants and comforts of inflocking immigrants. The emergency Camp at Ohakutte consists of three tents only, which all let m the wind and rain, and one of which has almost blown into shreds. A little damp straw strewn over the rain-sodden grass for a couch gives the iirst dreary outlook of New Zealand colonial experience to the newly arrived immigrant navvy—surely there is much that might be ameliorated here. The first stew ought to "be to segregate the vacuous deficients who have the destinies of the new road, at present, under their control, and who seem likely, from sheer paralytic inefficiency, to protract its completion for years beyond the time already allotted.