THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 1913. PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 26 March 1913, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 1913. PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT.

The present Minister of Public Works, who is a shrewd observer, is -not satisfied with the existing system of making grants to local bodies. He is in favour of a classification scheme, under which each local body wi|!l be granted a lump sum, and then left to provide .for its requirements, expending the money in the way it thi&ks most advantageous. He objects to the present system, under which local bodies simply deluge the Department with their applications, leaving the Minister to perform the unpleasant and thankless duty of reducing them to reasonable dimensions. Mr Eraser considers that the 'Minister, having necessarily but an imperfect knowledge of the districts and their requirements,- is not in a position to satisfactorily ajllocate the grants. That the existing system is radically defective, must be patent not only to local bodies, but to everyone that takes an interest in the construction of public works. It is the result of-years of tinkering and sad mismanagement. Ever since the construction of roads and bridges was taken away from the Lands Department and vested in -a separate department, destitute alike of a managing head or a guilding tail, tlie works carried out have been prosecuted under manifest drawbacks and difficulties. Once the Department was established, a chief engineer was appointed, and New Zealand, being divided into districts, each district was provided with a district engineer and a staff of draughtsmen, assistant engineers, inspectors. and overseers. So numerous did these officers become, that it was found impossible to keep them all employed. A considerable portion _ of the votes were expended in surveying, grading and the preparation of plans and specifications. This, of course, made the works exceedingly -expensive. When Mr G. F. Robinsou was appointed to the charge of the Wellington office, lie put a school of do-

sign in full operation; painting and .pieparing elaborate designs for roads and bridges. One of tho most u&eftuP duties lie performed was to out down a staff that was costing tho country about £15,000 a -year, to something under £3OOO a year. 1 Will it be believed that this was done in the ex/u:rso of a few months —not, how-, ever, without a good de&l of friction and unpleasantness—with the result that the work of the office was performed by the reduced staff far more efficiently and expeditiously than it had been when tho staff -was so large that its members were constantly tumbling - over one another ? As district engineer at £ (50 a year, Mr Robinson at one fe]f. stroke saved tho oountry about £12,000 . a year that had boon consumed by an official staiT. that had grown to be a huge encumbrance, and for which the public works in Wairarapa, Masterton, Par hiatua, and other parts had to suffer. The worst part of the Department, however, was the absence of an active working head. The various districts became detached and disjointed, and each district engineer, pursuing 'his own methods, became "a law unto himself." The consequences of sudh a state of a« we have described ■were inevitable. The late Mr Hursthouse, as chief engineer, no doubt did his best to keep his house in order.; but a vigorous arm wa« needed to sweep away the 'rubbish, and that arm was never found or applied, At last there seemed a prospect of a change that would proJwibly have been benehciaf.; 'but at this critical juncture potential influences were at work, conspiring against the existence of th j Department. ; Under the stimulus of , prosperous times and easily-borrowed money, Government departments had been multiplied to an extent less necessary than ridiculous, and when a wholesale slaughter became imperative, the Roads Department was ' selected as one of the first, victims. Four years ago, the opportunity came. A season of depression produced a scheme of retrenchment, under which the number of Government departments was reduced about one*lkl£, and a smalf! army of active and ableIrodied State pensioners was -created under the Civil Service superannuation scheme. Simultaneouslv. tho Roads Department wa»s merged in Public Works Department. Pick and shovel men, with inspectors and overseers in hundreds, were unceremoniously dismissed, and the engineers and assistants who had to be spared were tumbled holus-boJu s into the capacious and hungry saws -te-'rail-ways and building confitimctiotn alii- 1 gators.. For the last two or. three years they have fed," wd!, not exactlya merry time." Som6"or , *tii'eto. i S vr : alligator family, : .while Other#- f.Vvp' been masticated an- 5 IT \ They did - - th ,f swallowed. -„ v ',f|ire so well as Jonah in whale, ; £or Jonah lived to tell the tale of his stivftige adventures. But the unfortunate road engineers havfe been ruthlessf.y devoured and the more expensive railway engineers of the Public Works Department are somewhat sick for they find the road and bridge experts extremely indigestible. This, we venture to say, is the genuine source of the Hon., W. Eraser's difficulties. The Roads .Department has been swallowed by. .the' Public ■Works Department, but the moral seems-' sohmwhat indigestible. Engineers used to r^snf. iiave been plaoed in charge of roads and bridges and competent road and bridge engineers have been disrated. within an,d without the Department are &sp&limg. The friction we refer to, and winch is too genuine ttiitl too apparent to be disputed or denied, has not besn profitable or agreeable to local bodies, who have competent engineers and overseers of,their own—men who know the requirements of the settlers in their districts and are experts in the work they liftvo to perform, probably due to the way in which the local bodies are interfered with and the comifaints arising from this inter. Terence with wovks that should be entrusted to their staffs, that the Hon W. Eraser contemplates the radical change he ha s referred to. We have heard it. stated that if the Akitn County Council had been allowed to construct the bridges which it piopo.ces to build without the assistance, or rather, the inter ference of the Government, better bridges would be built and thousands of pounds would be saved. It is this net by and-an-noying interference with locail works that for yeans has been rendering Government grants and subsidies of comparatively little value to the ratercayers. In proposing to hand over the full control cf the 'Votes for each district —outside of the money requir- , ?d for new settlements—to the County | Councils"or local! bodies concerned, the J Minister will have th? support of country settlers generally. I