Highways and Public Bodies.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18415, 23 June 1925, Page 8

Highways and Public Bodies.

The most interesting fact in the statement made on Saturday by Mr M. H. Wynyard, motorists' representative on the Main Highways Board, in his address to the executive o£'<the South Island Motor Union, was the announcement that the Board expects to be given power soon to increase the maintenance subsidy from 33 1-3 per cent, 'to 50 per cent. If that expectation is realised it will do much to make tho operation of the financial clauses ef the Main Highways Act clearer to •South Island local bodies. The fact that the Board is empowered at present to subsidise local body loans for road construction work up to 50 per cent, and loans for maintenance up to 33 1-3 per cent, has had a strikingly different result in the two Islands. While the North Island eagerly accepted the Board's offer of assistance for roadmaking, the South Island, which required money for road-mending rather than for road-construction, has abstained from making many applications that would have been made for road maintenance if the subsidy had been as high as that paid to the North Island for road-construction. For the, same reason some of the South Island local bodies feel that they have suffered injustice because tho figures showing the amounts granted to the two Islands are so much more impressive for the North than for the South. The difference between the allocations favours the North Island for two reasons: first, as we have just shown, the new j work in the North Island is largely constructional, and thus carries the larger subsidy; but the North Island local bodies have also been more ready to raise loans carrying 50 per cent, subsidies in order to obtain new roads than South Island bodies have been to raise loans for maintenance purposes carrying only 33 1-3 per cent, subsidies. Some South Island bodies argue that they are being penalised for the roadmaking they did prior to the passing of the highways legislation, and that attitude can be understood, but it does not justify the chargo that the Board has yielded to North Island pressure in its allocations. At the same time it is not clear why Mr Wynyard told the Motor Union that if the South Island local bodies did not make application for their share of the highways money "thero was a chance" that they would be deprived of the opportunity to do so. It is generally understood that the revenue received through motor taxation and Customs duties is allocated between the two Islands in proportion to the number of motor vehicles in each. The Act reads:—

The moneys received by the Crown as fees in respect of the licensing of motor vehicles, or as Customs duties under Section 14 hereof, and available for the purposes of the Eevenue Fund, shall bo apportioned between the North Island and the South Island in the discretion of the Board, but generally bo that the amount apportioned to any Island shall be fixed by reference to the number of motor vehicles in use in thafc Island. This does not give the Board an unlimited discretion, even if it were foolish enough to. attempt to exercise it; but it is true also that it was never the intention of the Legislature that large sums of money should lie in Wellington earmarked for, but unclaimed by, the local bodies of the South Island.