NATIONAL HIGHWAY

Shannon News, 4 June 1929, Page 4

NATIONAL HIGHWAY

‘,A great national undertaking, such as a trunk highway, would be readily appreciated 'by the people of this Dominion," says the "New Zealand Motor l.ife." ‘lt was actually suggested, after the Great War, as a. perpetual memorial to our fallen soldiers, and though seriously advocated in certain quarters, the idea was allowed to dissolve into the thin air of public apathy. "A few more influential people to back it, and there is little doubt but that it would have materialised. Instead, we have noiv, stark structures, which vaguely proclaim their purpose*, scattered throughout the countryside, and lack of funds has caused the principal motives to be struck out of the plans. ‘ ‘ Where is the purpose behind this most casual treatment of what was meant to be a sacred theme in stone? And after the results we have with us it is possible that subscribers would have preferred to. have seen their money go into the scheme for linking up the business and recreative centres of our islands.

"With the rapidly increasing demand for motor transport service, the speedy construction of more modern highways is daily becoming more important. The Government’s decision to abandon the proposed Taupo line, and to give access by road, is an example of a policy, which migiht be fittingly applied to some of the other proposed railway lines. "What a superb record for any Government to lay clown a National Memorial Highway! Built of materials' from our own pits, by many men who left their comrades 'over there’; prepared by machinery built and assembled in our 6wn factories by the hands of many of our ex-soldiers; and cemented by the lime prepared in our own kilns by men who had faced the same death in w T ar.

"It will come. Not, perhaps,,as a memorial to the. Great Dead, but as the monument of the wisdom of the living now, who wish to leave the impression of the greatness of their generation upon posterity.”