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Hokitika Guardian, 23 September 1924, Page 2

Tiik Public Works Department throng its a: live Minister (lion. (!. Coates] is inaugurating a new scheme •I<4

the expenditure <:f l’ai linmeulary votes, u hereby local authorities entrusted with the part expenditure of the grants, may anticipate the actual vote up to a certain percentage of the total available, subject to the proposals for the expenditure being approved by the Resident Engineer of the district. The effect of ties is that a greater proportion of the money availah’e will l;e

• spent within the financial year, and in the drier season of the year. There will he less carry over, a,ml less to revote, which will mean a greater slim for expenditure year by year, as all revotes count against the district quota for the particular year in which they reappear. The new arrangement once it is in working order should have satisfactory results. Local bodies will he able to take up fust the more urgent works for which money is appearing on the Estimates, and this will lie an advantage also. Heretofore it has been necessary to wait some weeks following the rising of Parliament before it was kuow.it what votes were available lor expenditure. Now with the knowledge of votes recommended for the Estimates, the local body need lose very little time, becau.se it can set about the pteparatious of plans ami specifications, and as quickly as they arc passed the works can l.e put in band. Three or four months’ time at least in each year tan be saved by this means, so that the lull summer mouths will he usable, arid better value will be obtained for .roadwork, in particular that carried out in the drier part of the year. The votes mentioned for We.-thind County mill a total of about £13,14)0. 'flic Member for Westland (Mr O’Brien) lias identified himself very closely with the eonferemes and consultations held in regard to the allocation, and has not missed an opportunity, apparently, to press the needs of the district. Mr O’Brien is acquiring a Letter knowledge < f the constituency and is able to realise better what are the more important works. Evidently he has been in close collaboration with the local body representatives with the result- that the district appropriation under all the circumstances must he considered fairly satisfactory. It now remains for the local body to see the works are pushed on as vigorously as possible so that the largest expenditure will he secured before the end of the 31st. March, and so reduce to the lowest minimum the necessity for revoting amounts for the following year.

The fact that a tender has been accepted hv the Government for the material for Waiho liver htidge clinches the conviction that the Horn. Minister of Public Works means to fulfil his promise in regard to the erection of the bridge in question. The tender for the supply of the material has been secured by an English firm of Manchester which was able to quote a pi ice of about £2,000 below the next best New Zealand tender. Comprehensive tenders for the supply of the material and tit erection of the bridge were considered too high, being between five and six thousand above the Estimate of the Public Works Department. With tho

amval of tlio material which will lip on the water shortly, the Government is to icconsidor the question of building the bridge, Init that important stage of the work is not to be delayed, and according to the Milliter’s definite statement the work will he gone oil if necessary by the Department. 'I his is satisfactory and suggests that by the summer of next year the bridge should he an no.omplished fact. The bridge taps the first stage into the Fur South, and will nflonl facilities for motor traffic pushing further south, and so giving the settlers of those remote paths more assiued and quicker transit in respe. t to goods as well as mails and passengers. ’Phis condition wid be iontributed to also by the erection of the Waikukupa bridge, now in hand, and probably available for traffic by Chli.stmas. .Motor traffic, thanks to the enterprise of Mr Clements who was the pioneer of motor possibilities ill an improved service for the south, has reached the Bruce 15ay district already at ccitain .seasons of the year; but it

is imperative that the traffic he provided all the year round. Lip to the present motor traffic is possible only ill the winter season when the livers are low. but it is in tbe summer season when traffic offers most, and to eater for the volume at that period of the year, the bridging of the \\ ailio. and the livers beyond become. i> necessity. Within Ibe next few years there will he a sustained demand for bridges and mile bridges. They are essential right through on the arterial road, and will assi-t gieally to promote both settlement and production in the southern district where there are many lino tracts of country yielding hut a tithe of their possible letnrn if markets were regularly ap) •roaebable. Tile bridges will afford the necessary op.r-n-