UPKEEP OF ROADS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 31, 28 May 1914, Page 4

UPKEEP OF ROADS.

We have a Public Works Department much more efficient for road-making than any rural local authority. I* or staff, for equipment, for economy in construction, tiie Public Works Department is enormously superior to the local bodies. Why then (asks the “New Zealand Herald”) continue the system of subsidy which in New Zealand has no advantages, and which lias all the disadvantages of waste in expenditure? It is an unbusinesslike method which must collapse whenever Parliament can be driven to accept the classification of “national” services so clearly set out in appeals to the guardians of the national purse, because it leaves others to share the unpopularity which always attaches to the tax collector. This is a politician’s view. To the citizens it matters nothing whether he pays to the State or to the Hoad Board. His chief interest is to see that necessary services are provided in the most efficient and economical manner, and there is nothing but futility and waste in leaving the control of main roads in the hands of local authorities. The Prime Minister has admitted as much, but he pleads that there is a majority in Parliament against the proposed change. This majority could not survive an inquiry such as has been hold in England, for no Parliamentary eloquence could convince thinking men that a main road is a “local work” fairly chargeable against local revenue.