INVERCARGILL-WAIKAWA HIGHWAY.

Southland Times, Issue 19900, 19 June 1926, Page 9

INVERCARGILL-WAIKAWA HIGHWAY.

To the Editor. Sir, —In your issue of yesterday morning you have a letter by Mr R. S. Graham, in which he makes statements which are contrary to fact. He accuses me of stating that the agitation for this highway commenced some 20 or 25 years ago. What I did say was that the agitation for a bridge on the lower side was commenced over twenty yeare ago, and we got the promise of it. Then he tries to show that the districts on this route have gone back rather than forward, which is not the case, as I showed in my last letter. Mr Graham also men- j tions the action of frost on the roads, but J does not every intelligent person know j that in frosty weather we have beautiful hard roads and that if there was nothing ; more destructive on them than that they | would last till Doomsday? Mr Graham seems to think that this ■ proposed bridge and highway are going to take trade from the railways. Nothing of the sort; It is going to feed the railway. He says that the meeting of ratepayers at Waimahaka was fortunate in having the advice of two most successful farmers. Let us see: There were three men from Mataura Island there who offered cheap advice, one was Mr Graham himself. Now, assuming that he is too modest to put himself up as a practical farmer, neither of these gentlemen can lay claim to being , practical farmers. Then Mr Graham calls this a big scheme, a white elephant; but does he not know that the roads are almost meeting at the river and require very little more money to have them completed ? He makes the statement, too, that this money will be drawn from areas not directly benefiting, but I would state to him that the Mat aura Island roads and bridges were partly constructed and maintained by areas not directly benefitting. Then, sir, he makes the statement that this roadway passes close to a tract of bog. Does Mr Graham not know that flax experts have reported favourably on this bog, as he terms it, as a suitable tract of country for flax-growing and that an acre of good flax was worth £IOO. There are* about 60,000 acres between the river and Bluff and if it were all under good flax what a valuable asset it would be. But we must have roads and bridges the same as other places to bring the land up to its full bearing capacity. Is it any wonder, sir, that our population is drifting to the north when we have croakers here deprecating the expenditure of public money on necessary works? The Highways Board has the money to spend and is going to spend it, but not in the South if we are fool enough to discourage the construction of necessary works. In conclusion, sir, I would urge on the whole of Southland to support this scheme whole-heartedly in the interests, of Toe Toes

and Waihopai ridings, of Invercargill and of Southland generally; and not be misled by these Mataura Island few. —I am, etc., C. CHRISTIE* [Personalities should be excluded from I this controversy.—Ed. S.T.]