CORRESPONDENCE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 648, 12 March 1879, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

[We do not hold oursdres responsible for opinions expressed by correspondents.] ■ [To the Editor of the Evening Herald.] It is one of the most astounding evidences of a decaying trade and hard times generally when you Bee the roads (whioh are, by the way, the arteries of a oountry) m such a deplorable condition as those of Poverty Bay are at this time. We have had just six hours' rain, l-10th inch fall, and our roads are m such a state that they compare badly with six years ago. To what is this to be attributed 1 I will answer by saying that it is to the reckless extravagance engendered by careless and unprincipled administration< We call out that we are ruined. We say with great justice that we are heavily taxed. We assume as an unanswerable truism that we do not get the worth of our money. The County Conncil pay an Engineer (!) £400 a year, and the work is worse than ever. That respectable body of jobbers prefer to see the work intrusted to their hands done m the most desultory and supine manner. Everything is m proportion. The Engineer is engaged m his private affairs, and has no time ; the overseers have no time, the Chairman has no time ; m fact, although all are paid, they have no time to do the work for which they are paid. The Borough Council is the same. The most ridiculous schemes and propositions are laid before them by each member m succession, or all m a lump, and the ratepayers have to bleed. We talk like a nation with £100,000 a year to expend ; we act like a people who know nothing of the value of money, lam, &c, Vbmtas.