The Sun MONDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1927. PERIPATETIC POLITICIANS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 231, 19 December 1927, Page 8

The Sun MONDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1927. PERIPATETIC POLITICIANS

IT has been suggested by the Minister of Public Works that it would be a good thing if members of Parliament were compelled to spend a certain portion of their time in visiting various parts of the country instead of sitting in Wellington for such a long period each year. If this were done the legislators would, in the opinion of the Hon. K. S. W illiams, then become more conversant with the needs of the country and they could assemble in Wellington and get through the work in shorter time and do it much better.

One does not know whether Mr. Williams was serious in his suggestion at Awakino or merely satirical. If the failure of Parliament during its record session this year to do good work in short time were due to ignorance of the country’s needs then, by all means, let our legislators romp all over the Dominion and acquire knowledge and merit. It'would not be a difficult search to find convincing information, but their lesson necessarily would contain some harsh truths about the manner in which Parliament has ignored the knowledge it possessed concerning the country’s needs. It will come as a surprise to most taxpayers to hear a political Minister talk about the jiossible necessity of compelling legislators to travel from one end of the Dominion to the other in quest of useful information. It has become so marked a habit with most of them that New Zealand, in proportion to iis number of representative politicians and departmental officials, just about holds the world’s record for expenditure on travelling allowances to its political knowledge seekers. Cabinet Ministers in particular do not require to be driven out of Wellington. Several of them appear to be as often on the road as are many commercial travellers. If they do not now know everything that is to be known of the country’s needs, they have wasted a great deal of time, and have squandered a big sum of public money. The latest estimates of State expenditure show that provision has been made for the spending of close on £200,000 this year on travelling allowances and expenses for administrators, legislators and State officials. That sum is altogether apart from flic grant of nearly £25,000 for railway passes and concessions to members of the Legislature, their families and relations—“their sisters, their cousins and their aunts.” Then there is an item of £350 for sleeping berths for exhausted politicians travelling to and from Wellington, and another item of £1,700 for steamer passages. Such is the expenditure without any dire compulsion to travel for the good of the country and the advancement of quicker and better government. Still, it might well be worth ten times that amount to compel legislators to travel more throughout the country and learn something about its real needs. It is to be hoped, for example, that the Ministers who voluntarily are now in Auckland, will acquire lull knowledge of the fact that, a week from Christmas and the flush of national Yuletide gaiety, there are still 568 ablebodied men out of employment, Then, as Ministers and members of Parliament enjoy a rejuvenating holiday after their record session of work and record failure to meet the needs of the country, they will discover the cause of the fact that to-day there are 9,000 less workers on the land than there were three years ago. Indeed, wherever politicians may go, they will learn howlittle they have done for the money spent upon their exhausting activities. THE DAY OF CONCRETE SATURDAY’S celebration to mark the opening of the concrete road from the Harp of Erin to Papakura was the culmination of a really notable achievement. A smooth affcl fast road from Papakura to the city now gives easy communication where but a year or two ago there stretched one of the worst travelling routes in the district. The new highway will undoubtedly facilitate settlement, although it must have a damaging effect on railway traffic. Still, with the growth of the district this loss will largely be made up. There should be good use for both rail and road. With the completion of the strip, Auckland now has the substantial total of 75 miles of concrete roads. Though the initial cost has been heavy, the saving in maintenance easily offsets this. There is, for example, the case of One Tree Hill. The annual cost to the ratepayers of nearly four miles of concrete is only £1,400. Previously it cost between £3,000 to £4,000 a year to patch roads that even that expenditure could not make satisfactory. It is apparent that local bodies have now come to regard concrete roads as sound investments. In addition to their smoothness and permanence, they are clean to the extent of being almost entirely dustless. Their economy is national in character, for they save wear and tear—indeed it has been estimated that they mean a saving to each motor vehicle of at least £5 a year, which means £IOO,OOO annually for the Auckland district. Some experts declare that this is a very low computation, and one which could accurately be doubled. The concrete “ribbon” to Papakura cost £159,000, divided between the Main Highways Board and the local authorities whose territory it passes through. If one considers the merely nominal cost of maintenance and adds to the saving in benzine, tyres and wear and tear of vehicles the value of the time saved on such roads, they must be regarded as indispensable adjuncts to modern traffic.