The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 1885. THE ROADS AND BRIDGES CONSTRUCTION ACT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2054, 29 July 1885, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 1885. THE ROADS AND BRIDGES CONSTRUCTION ACT.

Statements of a most indefinite charactur are frequently made regarding johs that are being perpetrated under tlie .Roads aud Bridges Construction Act, but whenever those who make them ure asked to point out where they are, and why they are jobs, they generally either evade the question, or they have to admit that everything has been done fair and above board, In the case of the County of VVairarapa North, '.lie air fJ in certain quarters is kept thick with ruinors of the kind, and from time to time the public i 8 told that the members of Parliament for the district have assisted in the perpetration of some infamous jobs for the benefit of either themselves or their friends, and Gare is taken to make it appear that the work is carried out at the expense of the many for the bejiefit of the few, Even the slightest inquiry into the principle of the Act will show that such a thing is utterly impossible, unless, indeed, ratepayers who are not benefited by the work allow themselves to he taxed for it. If such a thing did happen,. that would be entirely their own fault. • The Act provides that money may, under certain well-defined conditions, be granted bv the Government' to such local bodies as may apply, for road-making or bridge-building. 'lf the matter ended there, then there would certainly be room for the perpetration of any number,of jobs, and members of Parliament would have to do nothing else during the session except log-rolling. But it doee nol stop there, because those who are benefited have to put their liandß in their pockets annually, for a period of twenty years, and pay interest at the rate of five percent, and towards a sinking fund fou".' per cent, making nine percent in all. The public loses nothing by advances of this kind, and can lose nothing, because the Government can borrow money at a lower rate.The principle is, to a certain extent,similar to that of making advances to individual farmers which certain theorists propose to introduce,

with this ditifii'oriw, that in the one case improvements must bo ihe property of a corporate body, while in the other they would be simply for the benefit of private individuals. Yet, strange to say, the opponents of the Roads and Bridges Construction Act are the advocates of the establishment of a State Bank of Issue. They fail to see that the 'latter would open the door to an amount of jobbery that lias never yet been heard oi in the colony. Under the Roads and Bridges Construction Act, those local bodies which knew best how to set about borrowing money, got the most';.under a Bank of Issue those who had friends in the Treasury, or were supporters of the Ministry of the day, would get the lion's share. We art) aware that-there is one road in this district' that has been constructed out of money borrowed under the Koads and Bridges Construction Act that has been instanced from time to time as a flagrant, and infamous.job, namely, the Te Ore' Ore-Bideford road, and it has from time to time been said that it was carried out at the expense of the mapy, for the benefit of the. few, We .ask, who are the. many? Not the rate-, payers of the County, nor of the Masterton or Upper Taueru Bond Boards, nor of the colony, They are represented by those ratepayers who are benefited by the work, and by none other.- They have borrowed the money at a reasonable rate of interest, and undertaken to refund it. They agreed to put their hands in their pockets to carry out a. work that is proving of advantage to the whole district, and ■not to themselves only. If that is an infamous job, then we should like to see a good many more of them.