Turkey Begins Huge Road Plan

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 818, 12 November 1929, Page 16

Turkey Begins Huge Road Plan

PEOPLE TO DO WORK 15-YEAR SCHEME . • Mustapha Kemal, who lias carried j his people to dizzy heights of religious, political, social and cultural re i I volutions, with one of his famous sleights-ol’-hand, is bringing them down to earth, and is bidding them ‘ j work the earth for a solid 15 years ; to come. | Everybody in Turkey, including i Americans and other foreigners, who 1 ; have resided in the country for six ! months, must do their bit on the ; building of a great network of roads, the project for which has just emerged full-bloom from the waves of Kemalist reform. The new road law provides for 5,000 miles of highways in Asiatic Turkey, and for the renovation of the existing 8,000 miles of state roads, most of which are little more than miserable dirt trails. Within the whole land there are at present scarcely a dozen miles of asphalt or concrete. But the best of roads are to spread : over Anatolia to the tune of j ! £12,000,000 within the next 15 years, i Under the new law everybody in j Turkey between the ages of 18 and GO. except Embassy and Consular ofli- \ cials, invalids, students, soldiers and j fathers of five living children, will be j drafted for road service. Yearly for : 10 consecutive days, the Turkish i equivalents of the Colonel’s lady and i Jude O’Grady and their respective hus- ; hands must break stones and shovel ; dirt, or pay an exemption tax of £l. 1 | The new 5,000 miles of highways ! : will link Angora to Constantinople by ! a fast speedway; Angora to Sivas, j Erzeroum and Kara on the Russian j | frontier; Angora to the Persian j frontier by a branch road from Erzeroum; Angora to the frontier of Iraq by a branch road from Sivas, ; and Angora to the Syrian frontier via Symrna, Konia and Adana. The £12,000,000 required for construction will be met by revenues i from the State monopolies of alcohol, matches and tobacco, which aggre- j gate some £2,000.000 annually. Any ' surpluses from the general budget of | the State also go to the road fund.