King Country Chronicle SATURDAY, JAN. 25, 1913 THE ROADING QUESTION.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 536, 25 January 1913, Page 4

King Country Chronicle SATURDAY, JAN. 25, 1913 THE ROADING QUESTION.

The Prime Minister and his colleagues have been hearing a great deal of late about various matters ,affecting the domestic economy of the Dominion, and the peregrinations of the different Ministers have brought them into touch with the local point of view on parochial questions. It does not require a close study of the Ministerial movements, however, to discern that infinitely the moßt pressing and insistent question with which they have been faced is the all important question of roads. Main roads, puburban roads, backblock roads have all had their turn, and the question is likely to continue to be a medium of agitation for some time to come. In the older established districts bordering the city centres the chief disability appears to be the lack of good roads for motor car traffic while the older country centres are lamenting a similar drawback. In the newly settled localities such as the King Country the necessity for roads that will carry wheel traffic of any description is the outstanding drawback, while in too many instances roads of any sort to afford access to settlement are lacking. There is no doubt that the best possible means of transit should be sought fur in every district, and the rapidly increasing use of the motor car as an industrial factor necessitates the improvement of the Dominion's highways. It may be reasonably argued, however, that those districts which are yet lacking the elementary necessities, and which are destined to add materially to the prosperity of the cities, and of the Dominion generally, should have first call on Government assistance. A. sane and reasonable policy in respect to the granting of loans to local bodies has been adopted by the Government, and backblock counties are to have preference. This iB obviously as it should be. The roading of a new district meanß all the difference between success and failure to many, and the prosperity of the Dominion largely .depends upon the progress of settlement in the country. A highly important factor in the settlement of the King Country is the roading of the native lands, and it is to be hoped this phase of the roading queßtion will be given equal prominence with the other phases ot the great roading question.