CONCRETE ON THE ROADS.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 15 March 1917, Page 3

CONCRETE ON THE ROADS.

Full Particulars of a Most Welcome Innovation, as supplied in a Pamphlet issued by Wilson's Portland Cement Co. Auckland. (Continued from week to week.) HOW CAN WE BUILD CONCRETE ROADS IN NEW ZEALAND? " One of the speakers at the Chicago. National Conference, Mr Dunlap, said : — Now just let us glance at that word "afford." Right here let me say there is no more deceptive word in the English language when measured by the dollar and cents standard. I stand here as a representative of the boys who could not afford to go to school, and no man knows better than I what this word has cost me. Again, gentlemen, no man can take a pencil and figure out a profit to the-farmer from.an auto, yet the auto has done more to uplift the occupation and place it on a high plane where it belongs than, perhaps, any other thing. It has done more to keep the boys and girls on the farm than all the poetry and prose written in this country.

And I have come to this con- ' clusion-Mihat we can afford anything that is a forward step for the betterment of mankind, if we only think so.

How true that is! "If we only think so!" The Great War is a case in point. .

The automobile, as Mr Dunlap truly says, has done more to uplift farming and keep the boys and girls happy on the farm than any one thing. • On a good road it is possible for a family living 30 miles way from a city to come in and attend a theatre or other place of amusement and return home after the performance almost as quickly as the man from the city will walk to his home or the suburban man return home by boat, tram, -or train. The auto annihilates distance and makes it possible fcr country dwellers to enjoy the pleasures and distractions of city life without naving to experience its disadvantages. Very soon the farm without an auto will be so rare as' to,-be almost a curiosity. All this means, of course, that Concrete roads will be a necessity in the near future, for no other type of road that can be built cheaply enongh. will stand up to the automobile traffic and give the necessary smooth s,UT-fa.Qe that the ai^to, re^u.jv-es.j

What we need more than anything else, in this country to-day is a good roads movement on the lines that have developed in America,, a movement which is fast making that country the best roaded country in the world. Why should not w,e he able to build a great concrete highway right through New Zealand, from Auckland to Wellington, Christchurch to Invercargill ? Such a highway, would be an immense asset ..to New Zealand in these, .motor car ; v^hen | wealthy to.ur^st^ am in t^e habit | o,f taking, their mot^r- @ar-§ ' With them: for *>»-- , , ~ Ut isthe»>^" --^t better way ." ... . r of seeing a country than by motoring, through it ? We heard of a case the other day of a wealthy party of tourists who landed in Anckland from Vancouver with an expensive motor car with the object of motoring through New Zealand. ~ But when they learned of the state of the roads in the North Island they gave up the idea ; and caught the next boat to Sydney. This is not an isolated case, as we know, but; every such case means a loss to the country.

We should wake up and start thinking and working along new lines —big, broad, far-seeing lines. As soon as the war is oyer there will be a rush of immigration to these shore, and settlement on the land is sure to become closer. Now is the time to prepare for the future. [No. 16. [To be concluded next week.]