CARE OF ROADS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7684, 6 February 1904, Page 2

CARE OF ROADS.

Official Neglect in this Respect.

In the course of his recent travels through the back blocks, The Hon. W. i Hall-Jones made, what he considers, an important discovery. He found that neglected xoads were very much like neglected infants that are ieft on the door-step to starve or be farmed out. After a dray road at large cost was formed by the Department of Works, it was left with an amazing serenity to take care of itself. With a regularity, positively charming, every winter, the infant got into difficulties, the settlers did the wailing, and out came the feeding-bottle. Water tables filled, culverts washed out, slips occurred, and the dray-road became impassable even for horse traffic. In this way, extending over a number of years, the road had to be formed over and over and over again. The Minister concludes that it is greatly owing to the system of leaving roads to protect and care for themselves in a way that young and inanimate things cannot be expected to do, that these thoroughfares have proved so expensive. It future, it is proposed, as soon as a road is formed and made presentable for wheel traffic, to hand it over to the custody of the local authority ; and this authority will have the responsibility of keeping it in order by supplying sufficient surface labour. Whatever money is afterwards voted by the State will be spent in metalling and completing the road in a way that will be permanent. The Minister is probably to be complimented on having used his observational powers and applied his practical judgment to some purpose. The condition of the Alfredton Weber-road between the Waterfalls and Rakaunui during the last year or two has been nothing short of a scandal, some of it being converted from a road for wheel traffic into a very bad bridle track. There is a prospect that the road will now be placed in fairly passable condition.