THE ROADING PROBLEM.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 3, Issue 207, 26 June 1914, Page 3

THE ROADING PROBLEM.

The County Council's Proposal. f Commenting upon'this proposal our Auckland morning contemporary says:—"The application of the Franklin County Council for a subsidy on a large loan for road-making in lieu of a number of small road grants suggests a system which, if it became the settled practice of the Dominion, woulJ have many advantage?. From the political point of view It* weight merit would be in relieving Cabinet and Parliament of the functions of a road board. Under the present system small sums are dolsd out for a great many specified works in each county. The consequence is that people interested in each particular work make it their busii.ess to canvass members and Minister?. Parlimentary business is clogged, and public life it vitiated by a variety of local «.onsideratior.s which are properly for a local body to settle. By understanding and implication, if not explicitly, votes are battered foi a member's interest in a bridge or culvert cr road, and members busy- themselves on local affairs because this wins more votes tban the exposition of national qusstions. So confirm d and vicious is this eystem that it has evolved a distinct type of politician, known as the 'roads and bridges' candidate, ar.d it is notorious that numbers of members of limited capacity retain their teats by pettifogging advocacy of small local requitement?. Indeed ihe system lends itself to an even more open abuse. In the past the allocation to local bodies in the Public Works Estimates have greatly exceeded the expenditur?. The margin has been to great and so oft-recurring as to fuggest that grants were promised without any intention that they should be spent and merely to influence voters. Under a system of subsidy the member of Parliament would be spared harassment about small grants, fie might still be asked to use bis influence to secure as large a subsidy as possible, but he would at least have no concern with its details, and the local authority, which is best qualified to do so, would determine the allocation of expenditure within its boundaries. The present system is so pernicious that it must be replaced. It wastes the time of Parliament by saddling ii with what is the legitimate function of the local authority. It degrades politics, and helps to •ecure the return of an interior class of member."