THE HIGHWAYS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3990, 27 August 1929, Page 2

THE HIGHWAYS.

BOARD'S FUNDS

GOVERNMENT PROPOSAL.

A STRONG PROTEST

A vigorous protest against the proposal of the Government to deprive the Highways Board of the contribution of £200,000 which it has received from the Government in recent years was voiced by Mr. A. E. Anscll, the Reform member for Chalmers, in the House of Representatives on Friday.

Mr. Anscll said the motorists had at no time objected to paying a fair share of taxation. So far as the £200,000 was concerned there was a definite obligation on the Government to honour the agreement that it had arrived at with the county authorities and the motorists. He considered Ithat the Highways Board had done splendid service for the country. Mr. F. Langstone (Labour, Waimarino) : “The Highways Board is

a nuisance!” Mr. Ansell did not agree. The hoard had done a tremendous lot of work which would not have been tackled had the board not been in existence. When the hoard took over there wore approximately 0000 miles of roads under its control, but to-day that mileage had been increased to 10,000 miles. Instead of the Public Works vote being cancelled altogether it should lie increased* The Government, as the result of its action, was being relieved of. the liability of looking after 10,000 miles of road. In addition to ordinary taxation, the motorists last year had paid into the Consolidated Fund about £1,200,000. In regard to the secondary roads that had been taken over, the Government had been relieved to the extent of at least £50,000 annually. FINDING EMPLOYMENT. L had to he remembered, continued Mr. Ansell, that a large proportion of the secondary roads were in back block areas and served land which could be settled and developed. In his opinion, the burden of relieving the unemployed should not be put on any particular section of the community. The Prime Minister had stated that it was not the duty of the Government to provide work; for everybody, but somebody had to do the job. Last year the motorists had contributed about £220,000 towards finding work for the unemployed. It was hardly a fair thing to put iliac burden on to the motorists. Generally speaking, the motorists were quite prepared to allow their funds to be used for that purpose, but in doing so they were certainly making a sacrifice because a large proportion of the work which had been carried out would not under ordinary circumstances have been necessary for many years. It was carried out under conditions that Certainly were not economic. In order to relieve unemployment in the cities the Government had subsidised local bodies to the extent of about £IOO,OOO. They did not object to that, but they did object to the Government not only refusing to subsidise the contributions by motorists but by going further and taking away money to which the motorists were 'justly entitled. Large sums had been spent by the Highways ißoard in the South Island on Government roads and bridges. On the West Coast particularly the roads had been constructed and maintained out of the Highways Board fund, and the £200,000 which it was proposed to take away had been specially earmarked for assisting districts to have decent roads without calling mi adjacent land-holders t-o contribute to the cost. Many thousands of pounds had been saved by the Government in the construction of bridges as a result of the contributions which the motorists had made. Had those contributions not been made the Government would have been faced with a very heavy ex- , pendituve from its Publili Works funds. ME Ansell had been endeavouring to find-eases in which the Governments of other countries wc-re absolutely repudiating the responsibility for their main highways. He had been unable to find any eases at all. The Government had been doing the wrong thing 'ii disregarding its responsibilities to pay pojrtion of the expenditure which was necessary for the maintenance and construction of the main roads of the country. A MORAL OBLIGATION. Mr. Ansell said he considered there was a legal obligation on the Government to make the contribution, but if there was not a legal claim there was indisputably a moral claim. No Government should shelter behind a legal quibble in order to get out of its obligation. The suggestion by the Prime Minister that there were ample funds in the possession of the Highways Board to carry on their work was refuted by Mr. Ansell, and what the Prime Minister was actually doing was to deprive the counties of New Zealand of the subsidies to which they were entitled. Outlining wliat the Highways Board had done since it had come into existence, the speaker pointed out that at first .it paid a subsidy of £1 for £2. When it found that the number of mo-tor-cars in New Zealand had exceeded its expectations it raised the subsidy to £1 for £l. Then, as the taxation increased, it went up to 30/- for £l, and later, when further increases were made, it went up to £2 for £l. There was no doubt that the counties would be justly entitled to a greater subsidy in future than they had had in the past, and on behalf of the counties in his district lie wished to strongly protest against the proposals of the Government.

A gentleman connected with the United Party—-Mir. Ansell believed he was the Dominion organiser of the party —had been making a number of statements regarding the Highways Board, apparently with the object of justifyng the Government’s proposals. That gentleman had stated that there was a great deal of money® invested by the board and that it was proposed to spend this in five years’ time. That was absolute nonsense. It had also been stated by the same gentleman that every year the hoard was receiving big amounts from the Government, and was not spending the money. He had never heard ■such absolutely absurd statements.