ENORMOUS COST OF PRODUCTION

Hokitika Guardian, 18 August 1930, Page 2

ENORMOUS COST OF PRODUCTION

STAGGERING FIGURES

GROWTH OF THE MOTOR INDUSTRY.

CHRISTCHURCH, Aug. 15,

Remarkable facts concerning motor transportation in New Zealand were quoted by Mr A. Tyndall, engineer to the Main Highways Board, in the course of a lecture-which lie delivered to students of' the Canterbury College School of Engineering yesterday afternoon.

Among the amazing statements made by Mr Tyndall were the following:

At least £25,000,000 per annum is spent in New Zealand on motoring. 'The combined, expenditure on motor railway and tramway transport is equal to 10s per week - per head of population. New Zealand imported 55,000,000 gallons of motor spirit last year, which, in terms of cur mileage, is equivalent to about eleven hundred million miles of travel per year, Or about 3,009,000 miles pel* day. One pint of petrol is consumed pelday for every man, woman and child in the Dominion.

The consumption of petrol is equal to about five or six passenger miles per day for every inhabitant of the Dominion.

COMPARISON WITH OTHER COUNTRIES.

Mr Tyndall said that a fortnight’s time ho would he leaving New Zealand to attend the Sixth International Roads Congress, to he held in the United States and at which fifty-six countries would represented. He had therefore been interested in investigating the position, of New Zealand in comparison with the other countries that would be represented. It was well-known, of course, that the United States led the world as regards the number of motor vehicles in ratio to population, and that New Zealand and Canada were virtually running in second place. But leaving out the question of ratio to population and taking only the number of vehicles, it was very interesting to find that New Zealand was in eleventh place in the list of the world’s countries in the actual number of motor vehicles. New Zealand,, lie had ascertained, had more motor vehicles that Austria, Belgium, China, Denmark, Holland, India, Japan, Norway, Sweden, South Africa and Mexico, and practically the same number as Spain. Brazil had a. slightly higher number. When It was considered that these countries had infinitely greater populations that New Zealand it would be realised what an important part motor transport played in the life of the Dominion. MILEAGE OF ROADS.

The development of motor transport could not be dissociated from the problem of reading, Mr Tyndall continued, New Zealand, although one of the youngest countries in the world, was in eighteenth place as regards actual mileage of formed roads For this favourable position we owed a grea t deal to the pi queers who had done an enormous amount of work in road building. It was not the,efforts or the Main Highways Board that had made the reading system in New Zealand what is. was to-day, but the work of the road builders of earlier years. \ The United States had 26,000,000 motor vehicles, and the whole of the rest of the world 8,000.000. Moreover, of the six and a half million miles of roads in the world, three millions were in the United States. California was noted for its wonderful arterial roads, and it was interesting to compare the Californian road system with that of New Zealand.

California, which had two and a half times the population of New Zealand, and nine times the number of motor vehicles to tax, had 30,000 miles of formed roads, yet the mileage of its roads that could be traversed all the year round by motor vehicles without the use of chains, etc., was 5000 less than New Zealand possessed. Sixty per cent, of the mileage of New Zealand roads was surfaced, and the average for the whole of the United States was only 16 per cent, only three States having a greater mileage of surfaced roads than this country. MILES OF TRAVEL.

These facts said Mr Tyndall, showed how important rending had become in New Zealand, The quantity of benzine imported into the Dominion Inst year was 55,000,000 gallons, equal to between one thousand and eleven hundred million miles or road travel, or about 3,000,000 vehicle miles per day. When the figures were changed into money values they showed an appalling cost. For every man, woman and child in the Dominion one pint of benzine was used per day. A pint of benzine was equivalent to 2} vehicle miles. The figures showed that on the average every person in the Dominion travelled over five miles a day in a motor vehicle.

The total revenue of the New Zea-

land Government was approximately £25,000,000 a year, yet practically as much as the whole national revenue was spent by the people on motor transport. At least £25,000,000 was spent in this country cacli year in running round in. motor vehicles. The cost of running the railways was about £8,000,000 a year. If to the cost of of motor transport was added the cost of running the railways and tramways, the cost per individual inhabitant worked out at 10s per week. Therefore if a man had a wife and three, children the cost was equal to £2 10s a week for the whole family. EXPENDITURE ON ROADS.

No other Government activity equalled that of loading, the annual expenditure on which amounted to about £7,C00.000. An expenditure of £7.00,000 on roading was a satisfactory proportion of the total expenditure of £25.001,000 Im motoring, and compared favourably with rue expenditure by the Railway Department on the -maintenance of, its permanent wav. The oroidem of reading, said Mr Tyndall, had become a far-reaching iin porta n r e. as it involved every individual in the country, and that was the object in presenting a few of the outstanding facts in regard to the question of transportation. . Mr Tyndall then proceeded to deal with a number of the technical aspects of road making, and at the conclusion of his address was accorded a hearty vote of thanks.' Profess'd' J. E. L. Cull, professor of civil engineering at Canterbury College, occupied the chair.