ELTHAM ROAD WEST.

Opunake Times, Volume I, Issue 25, 25 September 1894, Page 3

ELTHAM ROAD WEST.

(Our Own Correspondent.)

The Punehu Dairy Factory intended starting operations last week, but the impassable state of the bye-roads compelled the postponement of the opening till the beginning of next month. The manager says that the supply this year is expected to be in excess of that of list year. Considering that one-half of last year’s suppliers have this season joined the new Co-operative Factory at Awatuna, the progress made must be considered very satisfactory. The opposition to merging reported in your paper is not very apparent locally, as far as I can hear. Apart from the breach of faith on Mr HemmingwTay’s part, and the shifting of the centre of control some nine miles further away, it is difficult to see that we can lose much by the change. Within the last few years the bush portions of roads in No. 1 Ward have been entirely ignored in the Board’s annual expenditure. According to the balancesheet published some 12 mouths ago, it was shown that about £2OO had been taken from this Ward and spent in others, principally in Ward 4. This money was never returned, nor is it likely to be. Of course there were other roads in Ward 11 that managed to get their full share—and more, and 1 think the opposition is mostly confined to the residents on these favoured roads. I think this merging business has opened the eyes of the ratepayers to the hollowness of our member’s promises, and this is the chief cause of the antagonism since shown towards merging. Now that the dry weather is or ought to be approaching, perhaps it would not be out of place to remind the Taranaki County Council that an early start in calling for tenders for metalling their end of the Eltham Road would be advisable. Local bodies have a knack of delaying work till very late in the season, the invariable consequence being that with the advent of wet weather it has to be put off till the following summer. I