ROAD BOARD.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14859, 5 September 1918, Page 2

ROAD BOARD.

UPPER MOUTERE

■.Tho monthly meeting .of -the Road Board av»s. held oil Saturday evening last, .when all members wc.ro present. Mr..A. BenseHiiuin occupied the chair.

Arising out of the minutes, it was resolved that ithemattor of grading the Supplejack Valley -road be left in tho hands of the chairman.

Accounts totalling £44 9s 3d were passed for payment.

A memorandum was read from the county clerk, informing the Board that fthe sum of £40, being the second instalment of 1917-18 rate, and subsidy, "thad boon paid to the Board's credit in the Bank of New Zealand, Nelson. A memorandum was read from tho secretary of the Stoke Progressive Association regarding the purchase of tho Nelson wharves by the Harbour Board, asking that a resolution be passed at the public meting to be held in the district, that in the ev<?nt of the Harbout Board buying the wharves the" Government bo asked to earmark the money secured by such a purchase for the completion of the railway to the West Coast.—Received.

A memorandum was read from the Minister of Public Works in regard to fh"' r:'te of wages to be paid by the Board on any work subsidised by the Government.—Received.

.Tire Minister of Internal Affairs wrote re the French War Orphans' Fund and the Scottish Women's Hospital Fund.

It was resolved that tlfe seeretan write to the County Enginer for the use.of the road grader for sis days.

The following works were authorised : That the cutting on the Dove Hill ho cleared, and tho spoil be used for filling in ruts, and watertables cleaned out on the Dovedalo side of the hill; that Mr. C. Eggers have a ditch near A. WUkens's residence opened up, and one day's patching done to repair flood damage, at the same place; the road grader to he put on tho Bell Orchards and Best's roads for two days; that Mr. C. Eggers p-ot the Supnlojack fordI way temporarily repaired; and the chairman get the ditch opened near H. Siggclko-.v's.

f In referring to the spirit of the men " at the if rent, the Rev. W. "Walker, Chaplain to the Forces, said, in the course of an address at Christchurch, that there v/as the case of a British Tommy carrying a .machine-gun tripod on his shoulder, struggling deeply in the mud. | "He expressed himself pretty plainly j about many things." said the -speaker. ] '."His'.language'would not be loun'd in] any standard dictionary. A friend camcj along, and, thinking to cheer him up, 1 said 'Well, old chum, it's pretty rotten, isn't it?' Tommy replied, 'My stars it is! But never mmd, v/e're winning!' And on he went. That British Tommy epitomises, I think, the spirit which animates the men —the bulldog tenacity 'with which they hold on when, to use the terms of Kipling, they have nothing in their-, except the will that says to them 'hold on.' I say this is nothing less than wonderful. The hardest conditions which n human being can bfc called upon to endure are faced with a tenacity and buoyancy which nothing could destroy—not even death itself." The entry of the United States and of South American countries into the war, with the consequent seizure of ships representing roundly one-quarter of the entire German mercantile marine, is de- • scribed as a 1937 event which filled Hamburg's cup of grief to overflowing

But Itiumnirg aoes no o regret naving favoured ■ "unrestricted" -U-boat war*-, fare, because it still believes tliat ''itwill forco our eifemies,especially our urch-ioc, 'England, to conclude a peace, favourable to Germany." Ono of the-1 most mournful documents published "in. Gevniiuiy lor a, long time is the Ham- , burg Chamber of Commerce report for I the year 1917. It begins with a sad ciI planatkm that for the fourth year in | succession the Chamber is unable to deal with any activities in the once mighty Elbe port, except the efforts of its liardprossed community, to combat the rigours, of.war. Hamburg's trade, the report makes plain, is utterly ruined. A capital .soldier story was told by theHon. T. M. "Wilford at the Soldiers' Club inncrlieon in Mastertoh on Thursday. The Minister- stated that somewhere in France some New Zealand eoldiers entered an inn where beer was retailed in the smallest of measures. They each of them took a jug, .which they had filled, ami then consumed the contentsJ As they left, the inn three Belgian boys, who wo::- seated in the corner, asked the lady har-tender wlu> were thos&stranpr? fallows who had just departed. "Why don't you know ?" she replied. "Tiioso are Xew Zealand tanks in action!'"