MOUNT MESSENGER.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 May 1919, Page 2

MOUNT MESSENGER.

To- the Editor. Sir,—From time to time there are letters in your paper about the disgraceful stato of tha road over Mount Messenger, but more disgraceful la the way that public money is now being expended on it. Metalling was expected by a few sanguine people to be going to be completed this autumn to the bottom of the grade on the Hokau side, but so far no metal has been put on, A certain sum of money was voted to be expended in the meantime, to be expended in "improving" the road, and that money is being now spent in putting on a very Inferior quality of sandstone. Now sandstone is no gotfd on a grade, and the stuff being put on at present it worse than useless. It is costing £5 a day to da this work, and explosives extra—man ana team £2 12s, and four men at 129, £2 Bs. The new work will puddle up as soon as a spell of wet comes, and then the mud will be so much deeper, and after a time In the winter the road will bo practioally impassable, unless men are put on to shovel the mess over the side, so the work will cost nearer sevon pounds a day than five, and that portion of the road that has been so treated will bo worse than if it had had nothing done to it at all. Also, I believe, the same thing bas been done before In the same place, and all the work had to lundone in the winter. In the absence of metal, and metal is the only remedy, all that can be done to a road like Mount Messenger Is to keep the watertables open and fasten the worst holes with scrub to try and keep the road open for the mail coach in the winter. Now, for public money to lie expended in Oils fashion there must be someone to blame, and in my estimation there are four people to blame: (1) The resident road engineer; (2) The district engineer; (3) The chief road engineer in Wellington; and (4) last but not least, the Minister for Public Works. Now, of course, in a large matter such as the expenditure of public money it must be very hard to determine how much to apportion to each district that is crying out for it, but what seems to mako a big difference is the amount of squealing, and a lot of squealing certainly results in many cases in a handful of people being benefited by a large share of public money out of all proportion to their needs, and such has undoubtedly been the case, and money has been spent lavishly on many un- . important but expensive works to the detriment of such works as metalling Mount Messenger and bridging the Mokau River. Of course it Is impossible to exactly apportion the money according to the'amount of revenue each dis- ■ trlct supplies, but undoubtedly Mount Messenger and the Mokau lUver must have a lot • arrears of public money which should have come to them, and if Mount Messenger had been metalled when it was formed it would have saved its cost a few times over. I didn't ever hear anyone complaining about the grades on the mountain. No doubt one or two could be improved, but the thing that is wanted is metal, and until the mountain is metalled on both sides the maintenance of the road will be very expensive.—I am, etc., MESSENGER,