OUR ROADS AND RAILWAYKELSO TO SWIFT GREEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 1555, 27 August 1881, Page 19

OUR ROADS AND RAILWAYKELSO TO SWIFT GREEK.

TO THE- EDITOR

Sm,— The grievances I am about, to pen and lay bare to the readers of the Witness for the residents of this studiedly (at least it looks like it, so far as our roads are concerned) neglected district, are of such magnitude and so various that I scarcely know where to commence. But I shall start from the Kelso railway .station by road to Swift Creek, or Heriot, as the Government' have christened 'this embryo township, which; like Kelso, and many other towns I could name; the Government ' or their servants; the suryeyorß—of the 'day have had surveyed on low-lying, flat, swampy land, which to me appears unexplainable. Nevertheless such is the case, and as it is done, we will let it pass without further comment. Some two years ago my pen gave the Tuapeka County Councillors a castigation in the Witness about this same road, and now it is in a far worse state than ever, for they have commenced to form a portion of it, and have raised the centre of it with soft mud only, and so have left it all the winter for the settlers and travellers to wade through it as best they may. This road is a perfect sea of mud and slush and quagmires and deep ruts. In very many places the ruts are so deep that instead of the wheels performing their usual evolutions, the whole dray is sliding, and doing the duty of a sleigh. And this is just the state of things on several of the other roads in this otherwise flourishing settlement of some five years standing, and yet the Tuapeka County Council have had the handling and the spending of something like £100,000. It is a standing disgrace to the past members of the Tuapeka County Council, and an eyesore and a terribly laborious tax to the men and horses who have to use this wretched road. I know one ratepayer living by this road who alone pays yearly into the treasury of the Tuapeka County the large sum of nearly £100 in rates, and this one amount of itself, had it been devoted to ,ths purpose, would have made this road passable ; and yet this same ratepayer's dray cannot travel a mile from his own gate on the road without either sliding through the slush or b^ing liable to a capsize, so deep are the ruts. We have now one good working member in- the Council, who will, I know, do his utmost to have .this,. road formed when the weathtr will permit ; of, >, its being done; but one member cannot fight our cause against the whole Council with much success. The member for our riding (James riding) lives some 30 miles away from here, and he js really only, interested in the roads leading into Lawrence and the Teviot. The settlers here have themsel es ti> blame in a great measure for this state of things. If, instead of voting for a man who lives 30 luiles from them, and who does not care a rap for the state of their roads so long ag he has a good one at his own door, they were to vote for a man living among themselves, then it would be far better for the district, and we should not' perhaps have cause for complaint. It would appear by their past actions and long neglect that the Council have been doing tbeir best towards procuring a severance of this portion of the county. So much for our roads : now for our railway. The railway embankment at Kelso is raised some five feet above the surface of the flat ; so also is the station and sheds, with a view, I presume, to be above floodmark ; but if it was raisod 10 feet higher no one would be able to reach the station when there is a flood on except by a boat, lor the then flat is one vast sheet of back-water. There is a large and valuable flour-mill built nearly opposite the Kelso station, which is constantly i» full work ; a?id owing to the height of the embankment the proprietor cannot form asiiling except at a very large cost, and consequently he has to cart all his flour from the mill across the road to the station, which ia very expensive. A party offered a piece of land about half a mile further on, on the contemplated extension of tho line from the present site of the Kelio station, free of cist to the Government-^ ft piego of level; high land, juot Hdaptod for Mtotlpn