GOOD ROADS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 7 March 1913, Page 4

GOOD ROADS.

The Minister of Public Works is impressed with the fact that good roads are more essential to the development of the resources of the country than are railways, and he intends making road-construction a first charge upon the funds at his disposal. This i,s as it should be. lii this connection, the following comments by an influential Australian journal are timely:— "Road-making engineering may not be as attractive to -students as electrical or railway engineering, ,but it is a profession that would render much service to the country, and probably there will be profitable employment one day in the development of it. Good roads are essential to the welfare of a large section of the people, and especially to those who produce much of its wealth, and it would bo a heavy sum that it would take to compensate them for the losses that the bad roads inflict upon them; the extra wear and tear of horse-flesh, 'harness, and vehicles, the delays occurring in tlie conveyance of iproduce to railways and to markets, the irritation and tiresome labour required to travel over them would make up an amount whicli it would take much to cover, and would be far .more than the payment for the knowledge and skill to construct good roads and to keep them in repair. What is wanted is for the Government and shire councils to he seized with the importance of good roads to the well-being of the States? It is a national question./'