Roads and Bridges Construction Act

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 150, 4 June 1885, Page 3

Roads and Bridges Construction Act

Captain Russell in addressing his constituents at Napier recently, said the Roads and Bridges Construction Act was a failure ; they thought the Act has not answered its pnrpoae. He took the opposite view to that ; he believed it was one of the most valuable Acts which the country districts had ever had. Railways were made to many places and public roads to other places, but many of the outlying districts were unable to get their produce to markets, for want of proper roads. (Tnder the Road* and Bridges Construction Act by imposing a small rate on the district, they had been able to get money and open up the district. The Act was not likely to be swept away, but more liberal snbsidies would be offered by the present Government than the past. There was a scheme but it was vague, it did not oven amount to a scheme though it had been propounded, and there should be a change in local Government, the abolition of the present tax and land tax raised and expended locally— hand over to the local bodies to administer education, hospitals, and all such things as those should go to the hands of the local bodios and be administered locally. There was a great deal in the thing if it could be carried out, but it was not a question of local government only. If hospitals and police were to be administered locally, if the property tax were abolished aiid a land tax substituted, the whole question of general government wou'd have to be revised, also, the whole system of taxation, and therefore it was a great question of policy and not of local government only.