Taranaki Herald 17 January 1896

Tataraimaka

A tin-kettling exhibition took place in the school grounds here on
Thursday night, the object of which being to celebrate the
schoolmaster's wedding. The boys mustered in considerable numbers,
provided with kerosene tins, cow-bells, &c. When everything was in
readiness they opened the performance in grand style, and were
enjoying the fun immensely when the proceedings were brought to an
abrupt termination by the appearance of the bridegroom on the scene,
who invited the musicians inside, and regaled them with cake and
other things peculiar to a boy's taste. After doing full justice to
the good things offered them they took their departure, one and all
voting Mr CHAMBERS a jolly good fellow.

What has become of our Road Board? It has been very quiet for a long
time. Now that the Chairman of the Board has left the district, would
it not be advisable for him to resign his position on the Board? If
it is necessary to have a chairman at all, surely he should be a
resident of the district, so that any of the ratepayers having
business to transact with the Board can do so without having to travel
ten or fifteen miles in order to see the chairman. At the last
meeting of the Board, some six months ago, a letter was read from one
of the ratepayers calling the Chairman's attention to a number of
gates, with barb wire attached, across the Timaru and Greenwood
Roads, at the same time pointing out the number of years they had been
allowed to grace the roads, and asking for their removal. Since then
nothing has been heard of this letter, and the gates remain there
still. When any man goes on to a farm at first, no one would object
to him putting a gate across the road for a year or two until he
could erect his fence, but when, as in the case under notice, the
gates are kept across the road for 20 years, thereby fencing the
road off into paddocks for the exclusive use of the owner of these
gates, ought he not to be paying rates to the Road Board for the land
so enclosed? Besides, where milk suppliers have to use these roads
every day, it becomes a bit monotonous when they have to get out of
their carts and open and shut these gates every time they pass through
them. The fact of the matter is, the Chairman, has a majority on the
Board, and anything brought before it that is not according to his
way of thinking he simply takes no notice of it; and now that he has
left the district, let him resign his position on the Board, and let
some one be put his place who will be in touch with the ratepayers,
and one, moreover, who will be able to perform the duties connected
with his office without the aid of the oldest, if not the oldest,
Road Board in the Taranaki Province, and we have always been able to
do without a clerk until the present time, and we can do so still. I
maintain that in a small district like this a clerk is not necessary.

Another glaring piece of work is in connection with a fence which the
owner thereof has thought fit to erect on the road. Here is to be
seen the novel sight of the posts that constitute a part of the
fence actually placed in the watertable, so anxious is this gentleman
to secure portions of the road. This is a matter that the Road Board
should see to, and prevent anyone from encroaching on the public
roads, and if the members comprising this body are not prepared to do
their duty let them resign and let others take their places who will
look after the interests of the district. But here again the Chairman
trots out his majority and tries to prevent the road being handed
down to future generations in an unmutilated condition. Another piece
of _____, but enough for the present, I have dilated on these matters
before, and will most likely do so again on a future occasion.