The Farmer's Road.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19157, 14 November 1927, Page 8

The Farmer's Road.

We said the other day that it is proper, in any consideration of the petrol tax, to remember that the Government's chief avowed aim in imposing it is to help the primary producer. If it were quite certain that so heavy a tax would prove a blessing to the primary producer, that alone would justify it, and the Government would be on safe ground in refusing to stay its hand for anybody else. But of course excessive taxation is as injurious to the farmer as to anyone else, and in some respects more injurious to him than to anybody, apart altogether from the fact that he is a motorist himself, and that it is not certain that the petrol tax will protect him from heavier taxation in another form. But if the Government insists on its full levy, it is worth asking what special measures it is going to take to keep the farmer at the head of its programme. The Minister has refused to accept an amendment directing that the expenditure of the tax in the two Islands shall be generally in proportion to the number of cars in each, but as the excuse made for'the new tax is that motorists do not keep to main' roads, the farmer will naturally want to know what guarantee he has, with the Minister insisting on a free hand, that the secondary roads will actually get special attention. The Bill itself provides that of the moneys paid in to the Consolidated Fund after the expenses of administration have been deducted, 92 per cent, shall be paid into the Rflvenue Fund of the Main Highways Account established under the Main Highways Act of 1922, and that the balance shall be '"apportioned among " those Borough Councils in whose dis- " tricts there is a population of 6000 " or upwards " (approximately on a population basis). There is no very definite indication there, far less a guarantee, that the farmer directly or indirectly is going to reap more advantage than anyone else. For the main highway is far less the farmer's roid than is the local highway, good or bad as it may be. It is interesting to note that papers just to hand from America indicate that the policy of concentrating on highways is beginning to be modified in the United States, and that organisations are springing up for the purpose of redirecting attention to the national importance of the secondary roads and others of much lower rank. Although asking whether the primary or the secondary road is more important is something like asking whether a trainer should concentrate on a horse's front legs or on his hind ones, it is significant that after pouring out millions of dollars for ten years on arterial highways, the Americans are now beginning to wonder whether it would not have been better to divert a far bigger proportion of these millions to the so-called main traffic feeders. It is as true of New Zealand as of America that the

local road is the farmer's road, and that it is called local only for convenience. Its condition, the New York Times wisely says, is felt in the standards and cost of living everywhere, since it is " local in its use but nation-wide in its " effect." It does not appear, however, that this is the faith behind the MotorSpirits Taxation Bill.