The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1919. PUBLIC WORKS AND SETTLEMENT
. On several occasions recently the Minister of Public Works ; has stated that his Department is still seriously handicapped by the shortage of labour and other factors which narrowly restricted the scope of national development work during the later years of war. Explicit evidence on the point appears in the survey,of tho finances of the Dominion for the first nine months of the current financial year submitted by the Hon. A. M. Myers. Expenditure on public works for the nine'months is set down at £706,052. This, no doubt, is ordinary expenditure, and compares with the sum of £1,140.733 expended on public works last year. It -is obvious enough from these figures that the estimated -expenditure for the current year of nearly two and a half millions will not be remotely approached. Unless, indeed, the expenditure for the final quarter of this year (to March 31) is nearly double the average for its first three quarters the total expenditure for the year will be less than that of 1916-17. This is a very serious state of affairs, more especially as regards the road and railway works which are so urgently needed in order that settlement may be extended and established settlement made more productive. How serious the situation is and what an amount of leeway there is to be made up may be partly judged from a perusal of the following table, which shows the sums expended on the construction of roads and railways in the years indicated: —
Roads. Railways. ■« £ 1899-1900 255.943 417,937 1900-1 315,791 717,723 1905-6 351,204 1,021,265 1910-11 255,163 1,104,071 1911-12 .„ 424,579 1,125,905 1912-13 374,345 1,143,832 1913-14 377,404 1,104,897 1914-15 514,430 1,146,753 1915-16 424,491 1,065,171 1916-17 220,845 620,947 •■'.- ; 1917-18 < 135,642 495,771 Even if account had to be taken only of such requirements as arise in normal years the falling away in public works since 1916 to tho low point now reached would mean inevitably the existence of an enormous unsatisfied demand for transport facilities. We are "now approaching the end of three years of narrowly restricted outlay in development works. In the case of roads tho current rate of- expendi-., ture is considerably lower than it has been for a quarter of a century. The rate of expenditure last year and this year on railway construction is lower than it has been since 1900-1, and the amount so expended last year was less than a, third of the amount similarly expended in 1901-2.
The existing position, of course, is an outcome of war conditions, and its serious features are heavily accentuated by_ the plain necessity the Dominion is under of meeting its obligations and securing its prosperity by throwing all possible energy into the development of its rural areas. The Government has a double incentive to take every step that is possible in expediting the construction and extension _of roads and railways. A great improvement in existing transport facilities is indispensable if there is to be any material expansion of settlement—and such an expansion is essential to continued prosperity and in order that the' demands of the repatriation period may be met. The extension of roads and railways is demanded as urgently in ordinary justice to numerous settlers and their families now isolated in the backblocks and as the only means of enabling them to take an effective part in building up tho wealth of the Dominion and promoting its progress. So long as these settlers are allowed to taste the bitterness of hope deferred the progress of the country as a whole will be hampered and checked. Adequate means of transport arc of priceless value in any country, and it is impossible to exaggerate their importance in a country offering as wide scope for development as 'New Zealand, Firsfc-class roads havo enabled the peasants of France to maintain themselves on holdings out of which it might have been thought impossible to extract a living. The construction of the roads and railways which it is possible under an enterprising policy to rapidly extend and multiply in this country would have much the same effect in many areas as if barren lands were converted into rich pasture. These things are evident enough, but it may be emphasised that the Government will not meet such demands as are now to be faced simply by increasing the expenditure on development works, as labour becomes available, under-rou-tine forms of departmental procedure. The war has thrown much new light on transport problems in all their aspects, and full account must be taken of its lessons in opening up areas already settled or available for settlement.
If a scrutiny of public works operations shows' a vast amount of leeway to be made up, the same is equally true of the intimately associated enterprise of land settlement. Under ono head and another there is a considerable amount of land that will ultimately be available for settlement, but a great part of the total area is awaiting survey. During tho war period the Lands Department has neen able to establish
a fairly large number of returned soldiers on the land, but much heavier demands under this head arc in near prospect, and it is urgently necessary that the Department should be enabled to speedily expand and enlarge its present activities. The necessity is very clearly brought out in the last annual report of the Surveyor-General, which shows amongst other tilings that completed surveys of rural lands reached a total of only 343,525 acres in 1917-18 as compared with 679,093 acres in the previous year. Surveys of Native lands showed a slight increase for the year, but as a whole operations have been very greatly restricted and hampered. At the outbreak of war tha field survey staff numbered 96; at the end of the last financial year it had been reduced by war demands to an available strength of 57. One thing the Government certainly ought to do in dealing with the problems of settlement and development which now wear so urgent an aspect is to hasten the return from military service of the expert officers—engineers, surveyors, and so forth—who have' an all-important part to play in the solution of these problems. Sin James Alien stated on Monday that request was being made for the return of Public Works engineers now with the Expeditionary Force. .This is a move in the right direction, but something more than a request is called for in regard alike to engineers and surveyors. With the war over, the claims of development and settlement aro or should be paramount.
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Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 94, 15 January 1919, Page 4
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1,095The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1919. PUBLIC WORKS AND SETTLEMENT Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 94, 15 January 1919, Page 4
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