ROADS AND BRIDGES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 41, 13 March 1909, Page 6

ROADS AND BRIDGES.

LNCHEASKD EXPENDITURE. WORK BELNU VIGOROUSLY PUSHED ON.

The lion. A. W. Hogg, Minister for Labour, and Minister in charge of the Roads and Bridges Department, returned to Wellington ou Monday, after having paid a visit to .the backblucks districts in Taranaki between Stratford and Whangamoinona, and also to some other outlying portions of Taranaki. The lion, gentleman, who naturally had a very busy time on this his lirst oll'i-c-ial visit to that district, stales (says the Post) that public works are being vigorously carried or, there—advantage having been taken of the line weather to put on as many men us possible to carry on road work. Steady progress is also being made with the StratfordOngaruhc railway. Mr Hogg looked personally into various matters to which his attention was called, and will thus be enabled to form a better judgment as to the proper allocation of the expenditure of roads and bridges in that part of the country. The Minister was struck with the similarity of .Mangaroa—a township eighty miles inland from Stratford-to the forty Mile Bush district, or as i.ue latter was in the early part of its development. Alluding to the increased expenditure ou roads, Mr Hogg said : " My only regret is that I have not two or three times as much to expend, because it is an expenditure that brings back an immediate return." apeakuig sympathetically of the hardships endured bv the dairy farmer in the back country, ilr Hogg paid a high tribute to the thrift and splendid work done ii.uler exceptional difficulties by the wives of those settlers.

HOW THE MONEY IS DISTKI BUTED.

The Roads and Bridges Department has never been so busy as it is at present, and has been for (he past two or three months. Xo fewer titan 5231 men are engaged in carrying ou work under this department—principally in the back-blocks of the Mortli Island. The completion of the Korth Maud Main Trunk railway has meant the discharge of a large number of men. but these have nearly all been absorbed by the Roads Department <is they arc freed from the railway.

The expenditure of the Roads Department has now reached the large sum of .C(iO,OUO n month. It may lie explained thiit the money does not all come out of the ordinary vote for loads. The department spends u lot of money in opening up Crown lands—under the loans tu local bodies account. Under this head there has been an expenditure of 13,000. The works upon which this increased

activity is being bestowed are. principally, lis. has been stated, in the backblocks of the North Island. The largest number of men are engaged in road work in the King Country—m what is known

TV Kuiti Road District—and that is where most of the settlement has taken place recently. All the holdings are rather small there, and of course that necessitates the making of more roads to give access to the holdings. In the Tc Kuiti district thcr- arc 120 alien employed; at Rotorim, 4H7 ; Taranaki, ■l!>.) ; Wangaiiui, 48i> ; and Auckland, 804. It may be explained that the Auckland district for road purposes is a very large one—taking in all the country from Raglan to the North Cape, and extending ill the south eastward to Kaitikati. The expenditure in the Taranaki district is almost wholly in the districts eastward of the railway fur a distance of lifty miles, and back from the coast about twenty-live miles.