TOLL GATES OX MAIN ROADS.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 September 1915, Page 4

TOLL GATES OX MAIN ROADS.

The member for Egmont did a good public service when he recently asked the Minister of Public Works (Hon. W. Fraser) whether he. would take steps to prevent the Stratford County Ooun- , cil from erecting a toll gate on the main road connecting New Plymouth and Wellington. The Minister was thus given an opportunity of stating Ms policy (and that of Hiis party) on this important matter of the upkeep of arterial thoroughfares. His reply cannot but be viewed with much diss&tis-

faction, if only on the ground that it discloses a remarkable change of opinion in Mr. Fraser's views on the matter. The Commissioner , who 'had been deputed to inquire into the question had reported there was no reason why the County's proposal should be vetoed, and the Minister's reply to Mr. Wilkinson was that he {Mr. Fraser) hud recommended the Governor to consent to the erection of the toll gate in question. Such a reactionary policy is altogether out of keeping with the spirit of the times, and it is particularly puzzling to understand how any Minister, and especially a Reform Minister, could bring himself to approve of such an antediluvian method of taxation that has for many decades been condemned as obnoxious and harassing to the community. Although tile 'pernicious system is in evidence in the province by means of a perfect network of toll gates, yet up to the present no public body had contemplated erecting such a barrier on the main national highway, and the Stratford County has earned the unenviable distinction of being the first and only body to block an arterial road. By his action in sanctioning this relic of a bygone ago, the Minister has clearly proved that he is out of touch with present day requirements and enterprise, and that his administrative capacity has stood still since the days of his youth, while the affairs of the vorld have .progressed by leaps and bounds. Fifty years ago there may liave been some justification for toll gates, for it was not as easy to raise loans as is the case to-day; the population was much smaller, and the traffic vastly different, while the advant of the motor was not even dreamed of. But to-day conditions have totally changed, the Minister alone 'having fossilised. And yet it seems but a short while ago since Mr. Fraser, when in Opposition, so ardently advocated that the main highways of the country should be the nation's concern—that they should be taken over and maintained by the Public Works Department, which had better plant and superior technical advisors than local bodies possessed. He and his party in the old days always preached in favour of the national upkeep of the main roads. Since reaching the giddy height of the Treasury benches and being clothed with the power to institute those pressing reforms which they so strongly advocated, Mr. Fraser and his associates have suffered the infliction of a woeful loss of memory, hence we find that on the question of toll gates, when Mr. Fraser has the chance'of being true to his convictions he does nothing except wilfully impede one of the main arterial thoroughfares of the North Island by sanctioning the erection of a toll gate.