THE PEOPLE’S RIGHTS

Taranaki Daily News, 13 September 1934, Page 2

THE PEOPLE’S RIGHTS

RIVER BANK THOROUGHFARE. MEN WITH SAWS AND AXES. Here is a tale of derring-do,, from the days when Christchurch had scarcely shed its swadling clothes, when men stood by what they deemed to be their rights, when the sight of round a public area was like a clarion call to battle, says the Sun. Mr. R. E. Green, chronicler of Canterbury's early days, tells the story. He was one of tire group of men who showed that, whatever happened, they wanted to be able to walk along a certain section of the river Avon’s banks, without having to scramble over fences and walk across somebody’s dahlia patch. It happened somewhere about the '7o’s. In the early days of the settlement, a strip of land was laid off along the Avon banks as a towing path, extending from the Estuary to the Fendalton Bridge. A property-owner reached an arrangement with the Provincial Council by which he undertook to give a half-chain road through his property if he could take in the “river road” along a certain stretch. He set off a half-chain road through his property, and a mill was established. River frontages were granted, and sections were occupied by people who took their gardens right down to the river bank. This was where the complications began. For some reason, the final exchange of the half-chain road for the stretch of the river bank / was not effected,' and the river bank remained public property. Mr. Green says that he approached a member of the Avon Road Board about the matter, and was informed that there was no road right along the bank. But there were some who passionately desired to walk along that particular portion of the bank, knowing that it was a towing path, if unformed. What were a few gardens to them? Nothing at all. Mr. Green and some comrades armed themselves with axes and saws and set off on their Odyssey. They started at one end of the offending array of gardens, and calmly-ror perhaps, not so calmly—sawed and cut their way through the fences and anything else that happened to Tie across their path, until they reached the millhouse.

Were the invaders daunted there? Not a bit, according to Mr. Green, who says that they “waded into” that millhouse, cut a hole in one-wall, crossed to the opposite wall, cut another hole in that, and emerged triumphantly on the far side.

It has proved rather difficult to find whether or not the: strenuous resistance that might have been expected, was made to the invasion. Mr. Green says that he “lost a few friends over the affair.” And, of course, a protest was made, but it appears that the fencecutters were vindicated when the matter was tested. Thus was the public’s right to the river bank—a right well established now—well and truly claimed.