PUBLIC WORKS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 233, 29 September 1908, Page 3

PUBLIC WORKS.

_____-. .- ' - • : STATEMENT DEBATED. jSPEN-DITUKE IN THE NORTH. HOSTILE CRITICISM, .^jesrapli.— Parliamentary Reporter.! , WELLINGTON, Monday, r.rlv tils': afternoon a debate com•JS in " the House on lhe Public ' trnrks Statement. "ne Leader of the Opposition : ntr Masse v) made special refer- ' to the North Island Trunk SSUt rernar'',- that it was a sub-,, _?*«-** "• 'Nation that that • •„e was now a;-'- : - u ' hin . ! - r completion. He also expressed the opinion that it . Sould be a distinct success. He went | , Z to point out that one feature ot the , Statement was the small amount that _oJ been expended on some of the north- * d year, for instance £20,] nno was voted on the Rotorua.-Gisborne j. Z and under £10.000 expended. SevenJ other lines were in the same position. If the Government did not intend to j -end the money, what, he asked, was Se good of asking for it? It would. fc better to ask for a smaller amount and tb expend it. On the other hand. tne votes for the North Island railway 1 and the Midland railway had been over- j expended, and then again last year they | voted £433,785 for ordinary road* and ,: at the end ot the year only £____2j fed been expended. The same state of I ( _in_, existed in regard to tourist roads, j' and* roads on goldfields. The total | *mount voted over the amount expended en the three classes of roads was nearly ,£ 200.000. Was the £200.000 voted for backblocks roads to lie expended during the coming Tear. If it was all spent, and taking into con-ideration last years; defieiencv, the expenditure would be less thai £SO,OOO, the proposal to vote #250,000 enabled the Government to de- j Jude the settlers, and at the same time to raise another quarter of a million for public works purposes. It savoured of 'thimble-rig,, n." In view of the lack) of roads and bridges, it was no wonder that settlers were indignant. Even at present there were cases where flour was -23 a ton, and settlers had to pack their wool out for miles. He had very little faith in Ministerial promises made I on tbe eve of an election, and he com- I plained that Parliament had handed the control of the purse to Ministers, and I that in this respect no one knew how the j jnoney was to be expended. In that respect they were worse off than many ] members of small road boards. As j en previous occasions, Mr Massey urged that the local government system should j le reformed, and that a good deal of the national expenditure on public works should he handed over to local bodies. He also contended that consideration should te paid to the claims of districts which lad for years required railways, but had held over their claims until the North Island railway was completed. Some of the more important branch lines should be put in hand without further delay. _Jso he contended that two and. a-half millions was -an enormous sum to be expended on public works in a small country like New Zealand, and he hoped Ministers would see that the money -was expended to the best advantage. "Lithonght. that Auckland had got Stray with the bulk of the Public Works expenditure." remarked Mr Rutherford amid laughter. He added that of the . back-locks roads vote. £ 105.663 went to the North Island, and . 50,637 tn the South Island. Further, he expressed his gratitude to the Government for having put a vote on the estimates for the Waiau Bridge. He had had twelve draught hoTses drowned in the river owing to the lack of such a bridge. .(Laughter.) MAKING l"P THE DIFFERENCE. The Hon. G. Fowlds remarked that it would take a good many years to make up the difference between the North and South Islands, having regard to area and population, and he pointed ont that, as the North Island carried the greater population at the present time, the expenditure must necessarily be in proportion. Replying to the Leader of the Opposition, he pointed out that, biting to the late period of the year at which the money- was voted, it was very difficult to expend all the money that was voted, hut the only people to whom Mr Massey's argument appealed were those Tho did not understand the position. It vas all right for the hustings, but it did not appeal to the House, and. as to backblocks roads, he pointed out that the expenditure of a quarter of a million a year was to go on for the next fonr years. It was an honest attempt to do justice to the backblocks settlers, and if all that money could not be spent ty the 31st March, the expenditure J would go on every year until the money i t«is spent. (Hear, hear.) On the . other hand, he would not be at all surprised to hear Mr Masse.., before the general election, taking credit with his friends for having compelled the Government to go in for such a policy. Then the "thimble rigging - ' aspect of it -would have disappeared. He could not understand the suggestion that Parliament had handed over to Cabinet the control of the purse. If the Government was merely to raise money for local bodies to spend, there would not be much difference, because it would simply mean that ''wires'' would be pulled from the local bodies' end. Most of the votes at present were actuated by the claims l of local bodies, a large amount was still required for the construction of the Island railway, and that being so. it would have been unwise to have diverted any large sums of moneys f° r nranch line* purposes. Tbe object of Cabinet had been to best serve all parts °f the Dominion. MR HERRIES' VIEWS. Mr. Herries remarked that the Minister for Education had been a Minister lor three years, and they had looked to him for an expenditure in Auckiand j equal to the area which it represented, i <me-iourth of the Dominion. A Member: You have had more than i that. j Mr. Herries went on to give figures to i ™ow that except this year there had, sen too small an expenditure (proportionately) on works in Auckland, and] 7° scribed the increased votes this year' 0 the coming elections. Only a small I Proportion of the votes for * Auckland' "Start last year had been expended. "* ° th,s gear's loan, he hoped that this j s«r so large a proportion would not be! raf *_ Ir ° m tbe P o3t office :lt a less »« than would have to be paid outside, j t , t0 and means, he complained tot i Minister had included in the .»_ _ sum of £ 200.000 chiefly intended for the new Wellington and AuckS___!_* ° fficeS ' altho only some W.TOO was being voted for those and ™ r post offices. It meant that the *ffl . °_ tlm amount could - at the efl_- _ Ministcl % be expended on StaJi C works, although the money • m osteaaUy raised for a special ob-

ject. That amount should have been kept in a separate account. He also expressed disapproval of the fact that no special efforts were being made to utilise the water power of our rivers for electrical purposes, and in this respect he complained that the Government had prevented the Waihi Company obtaining the use of the falls near Cambridge except under impossible conditions. As to the Gisbome-Rotorua railway, he hoped the money- would be spent before the summer was over, but he was disappointed that the work had not also been carried on from the Auckland end. As to the backblocks roads to which reference had been made by the Leader of the Opposition, he pointed out that apart from the deficiency between the vote and expenditure last year, the amount provided for Auckland district under this year's vote would be still further depleted by the liabilities recorded against last year's vote, which are charged against this year's backblocks vote, and, as the result, he anticipated that th« roads' vote for Auckland district would be reduced to between £30.000 and £40.000. Further, he complained that administration expenses were charged against public works votes, a great deal of which went towards salaries of officials. This told more hardly on the backblocks than on the larger centres. All the money voted for a road, particularly in the back blocks, should_be spent in labour. AUCKLAND'S LITTLE SHARE. Mr. Buddo contended that Auckland's share of expenditure was far beyond the amount it was entitled to — £21 .477 out of £600,000, or considerably over one-third. He ascribed the deficiency of expenditure last year to the scarcity of labour, a fact for which the Government was not responsible. Mr. Jennings, speaking as a backblocks member, said he was in the unique position of representing three great districts —Auckland, Wellington, and Taranaki — and he.could say that there was no doubt of the honest desire of the Government to do justice to these outlying districts. He was also glad to see that the North Island was at last receiving the consideration it deserved. He strongly urged tbe carrying out of the Stratford-Ongarue railway, ajid said it would be very wrong to allow the settlers to wait longer for this important work. Mr. Jas. Allen said the question was, "Why does the Government not spend the money Parliament grants?" Only 61 per cent of the -amount granted had been spent last year on the Ongarue line, while another line got 110 per cont. The East Coast line had an expenditure of 46 per cent of the total grant, while in the case of the Blackball railway it had an expenditure of 115 per cent. Why was it? Did it mean that there was favouritism? The time had come for the country to pause and consider whether it could go on. He believed that the time would come when the expenditure of borrowed money would have to be cut down, with resulting distress in the labour market. THE PRIME MINISTER. The Prime Minister said that Mr. Allen j had been talking of the increase in the I public works expenditure, but he had omitted to mention that during the , period from 1887 to 1907 the country's ' revenue had increased from £4.585,000 to £9.055,000. Mr. Allen had attempted to mislead the House by saying that the | Government spent the whole of some votes, such as those for railways and public buildings, and did not spend all j the money voted for roads and bridges. What was the position ? The Public Works Department controlled the ex- | pendituTC on railways and public buildings, and the money voted was spent. The greater part of the money voted for | roads and bridges was handed to local bodies for expenditure, and these bodies were not able to spend all the money before the end of the financial year ou March 31. There was only one way to change that position. and in the following year he proposed to ask the House to alter the system in order that people might no longer be able to misrepresent the position. He intended to have the financial year date from September to September, or from December to December, in order that the local bodies might be able to spend the money voted them before the votes lapsed. There had been complaints from representatives of the Northern districts, but the plain figures of the expenditure on public works, apart from railways, during the year ended March 31, 1908, were a sufficient answer The figures were as follows: Auckland £325,287, Taranaki £78,784, Hawke's Bay £03,601. Wellington £1G6,350, Nelson £52.937, Marlborough £12,976, Westland £48.834, Canterbury £85,697, Otago and Southland £156,059. The expenditure in the Auckland district was vastly- greater than in any other district in the Dominion, and be did not see why an attempt should be made to create an impression that the position was otherwise. He asked, the people as a whole whether the Government would be safe lin voting a greater sum tha_ £725,000 Jin one year for roads and bridges, in ] addition to the expenditure of £1,000.000 on railways?

A SATISFACTORY POSITION. He did not propose to tell the House, as had been suggested by the Opposition, how he was securing the money required for public works. That information would be given in the following year. He could say at once, however, that the financial position of the Government was most satisfactory, and that he was not raising the money locally. Members .of tne House could feel quite happy about the financial aspect of the Public Works policy. The Prime Minister replied in detail to Opposition criticism, and in conclusion expressed the opinion that the establishment of a Public "Works Board to control tbe expenditure on public works would be an unsatisfactory and retrogressive step. HON. W. HALL-JONES. After referring to the difficulty of obtaining labour that had been experienced last year, the Hon. W. Hall-Jones instanced the case of the Gisborne railway, where they now had three times as many men on as last year, to show that"when labour was available it would be taken advantage of. The absence of labour would be the only reason if the votes were not expended. The Leader of the Opposition: "There ( will be no trouble in getting labour." The Hon. Hall-Jones replied that he would take labour now, if he could obtain it. on the Gisborne line for one. Speaking of the work of construction of the East Coast line from the Waihi end. the Minister said that was at present impossible, for while the Waihi route was best known, they had to make further surveys of other'routes. The policy had been to start; no new lines, but to push forward those in hand. By this time next year there would be only ten of the present railway construction items on the list. The Government would then be in a better position to determine in what direction it should prosecute further construction, whether on the Otago Central or Auckland-East Coastrailway. Dealing with the cost of railway construction, he said that for the whole Dominion it was under £8000 per mile, -which was very, creditable in view

of the physical configuration of the country. In a few years our railways' reproductive power would be enormous, and the Government policy would be justified. In the ease of some lines votes had not been fully spent, because it had been found thai further surveys were required. He also (justified over-expenditure o£ some votes on the grounds of expediency. < Mr Alison, in speaking of the North Island needs, said that in the North Island they had 950 miles of railways, against 1525 miles in the South Island. . Referring to matters in the Waitemata l electorate, Mr Alison made a strong plea for a bridge over the Waitemata at Riverltead. Speaking of the cable connec- . tion between Auckland and Great Bar- ■ rier, he -said that he wished to con- J gi.tula._e the Government upon the • completion of that work. Mr Mander urged that the North < Auckland railway should be pushed on 1 to Pukekaroro this summer, so that the 1 whole of the grant might be spent this i year. He also advocated no deviation £ | from the present route. After urging ] ' the speedy completion of the Whangarei- i Grahamtown line, the member for M«irs- _ I den complained that his electorate had 1 been overlooked in the matter of grants t out of the backblock votes. He had re- t I ceived the paltry sum of £ 100. ] | Air Gray took strong exception to the < parochial pleas of the northern members, i It was in his opinion preposterous. ; Northern representatives were going j home witlh swligs so full that they { could scarcely carry them. "They are 1 gorged to repletion," he declared. "Talk j . about parochialism, it is parochialism j gone mad in this case." , Mr Ngata complained that there ■ was no provision iv the Estimates for ( native, land surveys, and urged the ex- ( penditure of £30,000 or £40.000. 3lr Carroll replied that survey work . was very active. The Government in- ( tended to spend £30,000 in completing survey work and necessary settlement j of native lands. The Minister for Pnblic Works explained that the Water Power Act waa to be presented on W T ednesday, and after passing the first item on the Estimates, the House rose at 2.40 a.m.