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Woodville Examiner, Volume 3, Issue 281, 7 September 1886, Page 2

Hdoti.axd and Wales are now demanding Homo Rule. Should they get it ? ■\\'e say certainly. Ireland, Scotland and Wales will now go hand in hand, and England nmst give into what is a just privilege. The question now wears a new phase and no matter whether ilw; Ciovernmcut be Conservative or Liberal. Home Halo must be granted all round almost at once. The result ivrll not be internal dissentieu and bloodshed, hut peace, prosperity, and mtrstactrorr to llic; countries concerned.

A sfn.iKCT which ha? more to do with j

successful colonisation than almost anything else is that of road construction. Nor is there a subject more neglected. Settlers are put into the back country without roads, and for years we find some of the best settlers in the colony strut;, "lino against almost insurmountable difficulties from want ol decent roads. The situation is a most disheartenin'; one. The patient settler has to grin and bear it. Kow and again lie complains that, he lias to labour under very "real difficulties, and lie is perhaps promised by those in power that some steps will ho taken to alleviate his condition, and there the matter rests for a time. Large sums of money arc thrown away in useless railway or harbour works and the Parliament of the Colony persistently objects to do little, if anythin", for road construction. Somethin" must be done. The present state of things cannot last much longer if the country is to have prosperity reigning amongst its settlers. Obstacles innumerable have been thrown in their way. A road agitation ought to be set on foot throughout the country districts. A next election the question of road con-f struction ought to be placed in the foreground, and every country representative ought to be returned pledged to legislation in road construction as against the absorption of vast sums of money for useless railway construction. The present Government are no bolter than their predecessors in this respect. They turn a deaf ear to the entreaties that are made for money for roads, and they assist in voting money for railways, aye, and in some cases, these railways will never pay even the cost of their construction. The money required to make a mile or two of useless railway would make many a mile of excellent road wliich could easily be kept in a first-class state of repair for all time at a very small cost. As things are now people are hurried on to the land in all directions without anything like decent access to the land, and the result is that they are in a state of stagnation for the greater part of the year through inaccessible roads. Such a road for instance is Harding’s road. It is now a considerable time since this road was opened. It is badly surveyed and lies over steep hills and through swamps, and the cost of making it a thoroughly good road will be very great. The County Council has managed it badly' through want of funds. The work they have done is being seriously d amaged. There is no surfaceman employed, and the drains have become filled up and the watercourses have in places swept off the metalling that has been done. In other places the roadway is utterly destroyed, and for about two miles it is almost an impassable hog,’dangerous alike to man and beast. Yet this road is the key to a large and important district, and has in its course a line bridge which is almost useless owing to the state of the road. There are many other roads in the same condition in other parts of the district. This state of things is a crying shame to the public works policy of the Colony, and we should hail with delight the saviour who could remedy' it. So far as we can see at present a return to some kind of provincialism seems the only way of obtaining a remedy for this matter.