THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, & FRIDAY. FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 1921. PLAINS COUNTY LOAN.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXII, Issue 4300, 5 August 1921, Page 2

THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, & FRIDAY. FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 1921. PLAINS COUNTY LOAN.

The Hauraki Plains County ratepayers will be asked to vote on a loan proposal on Wednesday, August 31, for the raising ol £31,000 for the purpose of purchasing loading machinery, meta quarries, trucks, tractors, crusher, road roller, council chambers, and other items. The Council is unfortunate in that the present is not considered -an orp-<’.’-»me time for the flotation of a loan, but on the other hand none wifi gainsay the fact that loan money is absolutely essential for the carrying out of a rational roading system for the County. While there is the general rate and a few minor subsidies only to work on, the system of “patching mud.” so roundly condemned from one end of the Dominion to the other, must prevail. And how wasteful a system it is may be gauged from the. fact that on the Paeroa-Kerepeehi load alone over one thousand yards of metal have been placed since last January, nearly all' of this quantity being laid between Puke bridge and Netherton. This stretch of road is still merely a continuous series of potholes, and can never be-anything else until i£ is ripped up and a sound foundation laid. Patching, like Tennyson’s babbling brook, may go on for ever, but it will never make a road, though the system is immensely more costly in the long run than it would be to lay a good foundation in the first place, which takes less maintenance and can always be satisfactorily repaired. The Hauraki Plains County, being a newly-formed one in new country-, offers a good opportunity for the ratepayers to profit by the mistakes of the older counties and to go the right way at the start. Even in -the summer months roads that are mere ly “patched mud” are very hard on vehicles and have a very low traction efficiency; what the ratepayer pays in interest and sinking fund on loans for good roads he partly saves in lessened wear and tear' on vehicles, and the increased loads that can be hauled with a given power. Money will be urgent! v needed during the coming summer, and if the poll is not carried, the>i the roading scheme will be puh back indefinitely. The ratepayers need not fear that too heavy a burden will come upon them all at once, for only a certain amount can be spent in any one year, the statutory limit that can be called up annually being £5OOO. A district may have harbours, rivers, and railways, but without good roads as feeders to such transport facilities their value is largely nullified- All other enterprises involving heavy financial commitments may be re : ected, but it never pays to refuse the finance for good roads, and as the settlers on the Plains know to their sorrow what bad roads mean they will surely welcome a scheme designed to provide good permanent roads of high traction efficiency and low maintenance cost.