MAIN HIGHWAYS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 4, 26 March 1927, Page 15

MAIN HIGHWAYS

mSCGNTENT IN SOUTH QUESTION OF SUBSIDIES (.Special to THE SUN.) CHRISTCHURCH, Friday. It is stated from Wellington that the total revenue of the Main Highways Board up to the present is £1,565,723. It is made up thus: Tyre tax, £796,130; motor registrations and licences, £535,988; miscellaneous, £78,605; transferred from consolidated fund, £105,000. The amount allocated to the North Island was £94.1,204, of which £519,761 has been spent. The South Island was allocated £624,520, of which £273,754 has been spent. To-day members of- the South Island Motor Union urged the"need for speeding up the improvement of South Island roads. The president, Mr. A. E. Ansell, Dunedin, said some alteration in the method of subsidising was necessary. Lying in Wellington there was a sum of £350,766 to the credit of the South Island. It was nice to think it was

there, but it would be better on the roads. At present money could not be taken up by local bodies, because of their inability to find their quota of expenditure. Mr. P. W. Johnston said the Main Highways Board must be grievously disappointed by the South Island results. If they were to continue with one board, the Act would have to be torn to pieces, or there must be a South Island Board. Pie moved that the Main Highways Board be asked to call a meeting in the South Island of representatives of all parties interested to see what could be done to ameliorate the existing conditions. The motion was carried. Most . speakers urged the formation of a South Island Board, but Mr. C. J. Talbot, counties’ representative on the Mam Highways Board, said that rather than have that, he would prefer that there be a South Island motorist on the present board. The time might come when there would be differentiation between the islands regarding subsidies. A motion that the union take steps to have a South Island board set up was rejected. Consideration of the matter was deferred.