Correspondence

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 48, 7 October 1890, Page 2

Correspondence

RANGITIKEI ELECTION^ SUBSIDY QUESTION. TO TDK KJ>ITOH OF THE STAR. . Sir, — It is always unfortunate for the cause he espouses when a partisan writes on a subject of which he is totally ignorant in defence of that cause, or in censure of its opponents. No more crucial instance of the truth of the foregoing could be adduced than Mr Jacob's letter in your issue of Saturday, attacking me in the interests of Mr Arkwright. Mr Ark wright might well say, " Save me from my friends," if they were all as injudicious as Mr Jacob. I hope, with Mr Jacob, that the ratepayers of Kiwitea and Manchester will thoroughly understand and appreciate what Mr Jacob calls my kind proposal. If they do, nothing could be better for my interests as a candidate for re-election. What are my proposals, and how are the ratepayers affected by them ? I quote correctly the passages in my Marton speech which Mr Jacob refers to ; also a passage from a speech I delivered in the House last session on the subsidy question. Extract from Marton Speech : — i "Mr Macarthur's proposal was to devote the subsidies to the purpose of pro- '• vidmg an insurance fund for the conj dtruction and maintenance of large bridges, and the balance to make roads of access to new blocks. The proper object of Government subsidies was one of that nature. Many local bodies would grumble at losing their subsidies, but the money would be better employed than now, because it would be more equitably spent. The payment of subsidies was based upon a wrong principle in giving mostly to those who have." Extract fbom Hansabd, No. 8, page 534, session 1890 : — " I think our subsidies are applied on a wrong principle altogether. . . . . What the Government should do, in my opinion, is not to help those who can help themselves, but to help the weaker, ' outlying country districts; and it is because that has not been done that our system has failed. I say these subsidies ought to be applied strictly to purposes of settlement; and the Government should give them to the local bodies, with the stipulation that they should be expended on certain roads to open up waste lands of the Crown. At present, eyen under this new system proposed by the Government, we should, say, have a road made into a new block, but the roads in the older districts outside, giving access to the new block, would not be made by the local bodies because they would calculate that the Government would ultimately haye to make them. I think that the proposition that boroughs should nut have subsidies is a proper one. We did without those subsidies from 1882 to 1885, and the country did not grumble a bit at their being taken away ; and it was also quite prepared to have them taken away when they were reduced to 5s in the pound at the beginning of this Parliament. That is a retrenchment which, I would point out to the Government, could very well be made. The country would not grumble, and the Crown lands would be opened up under that system." •

Yonr readers will see that my proposals to take away subsidies from cities like Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, in order to devote them to the cause of settlement, benefits Eoad Boards like Manchester and Kiwitea much more than the present system. The Kiwitea.. Road Board, Mr Jacob says, gets £300 ayear subsidy. Under my plan it would get all the extensive mileage of road in the northern part of the road district, made either under my system for roading Crown Lands before sale, which has been adopted by the Government, or, when sales have already taken place, by my proposed application of the subsidies. Its share of the maintenance of the Onepuhi Bridge, which is such a source of i complaint againot me, would also be I taken off its hands. These benefits would I far outweigh a subsidy of i'3oo a-year, which in its yery nature is a temporary expedient, and may be swept away at any time through financial exigencies. Now j for the Manchester Eoad Board. That body has no Crown Lands to open, it is , true ; Lv: it has a share in the maintenance of several large bridges, notably the Onepuhi Bridge and the whole charge of the bridge across the Manawatu at the Gorge, which cost between J6OOO and .£7OOO. The maintenance of this last is provided at present out of the tolls, but as soon as the railway is finished the tolls will scarcely pay to collect, and nothing is more certain than that the Manchester Board's bridge maintenance will, in a short time, equal, if not exceed, its subsidy. Wooden bridges will not last for ever, even if they are fortunate enough to escape the more imminent dangers of fire and flood; and it is only prudent forethought to provide the funds for their inevitable re-construction. If this be not done, then a grievous burden, swallowing up the revenue of the district for years, will sooner or later be thrust on the ratepayers. As settlement advances other large bridges will be required, and the fund I propose will provide an easy means of getting over the financial difficulty of constructing them. Two new bridges at least are now urgently necessary in this district — one across the Oroua River at Aorangi, and another on the road leading to the Feilding Small Farm Block, beside?, in the near future, a bridge across the Bangitikei some miles above the Onepubi, and one across the Fohangina to the Foxton Small Farm Block. There is little chance of getting a vote though for these necessary works, and yet they are requisite in the interests of settlement.

It is, therefore, in the truest interests of such bodies as the Manchester and Kiwitea Road Boards that I have been working when proposing to change the present inequitable and confessedly temporary plan of distribution of the subsidies to one which has more chance of being permanent, from having justice and common sense for its basis. Ab for the liabilities with which the Manchester Koad Board has saddled itself to make roads, this question was fought out at a public meeting during the last general election for the Manchester Road Board, when the candidate I supported was elected by an overwhelming majority. I am ready to fight it out again at any public meeting of Manchester ratepayers. My action in the matter of roadmaking in the Manchester Block cannot, in my interests, be made too public or ventilated too thoroughly. I am, as a public man, proud of it, and look back on my last 15 years' work in that respect with nnalloyed satisfaction. The special rate for the loan raised under the Roads and Bridges Construction Act has been reduced from one penny and one-sixth in the £ to about one-half that rate mainly through my agency. It is this rate that pays the interest on the lon,n, and not the subsidy as Mr Jacob, in Ms ignorance of the siibject, maintains. I venture to say that there is no district in N.Z. roaded like the Manchester Block, almost all of which was covered with standing bush in 1874. ] As the Manchester electors have twice (in 1884 and 1887) given me large majorities since 1882, when the loan Mr Jacob censures me for raising was obtained, I need

scarcely reply further to his strictures on the subject. It would be just as well if that gentleman informed himself more thoroughly on these road questions before rushing into print. As soon as he understands the subject he will, if a fair minded ,man and a man of intelligence, feel that he has done me a gross injustice, and apologise accordingly. — I am, &c, D. H. Macabthub.