The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1917. PUBLIC WORKS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 244, 12 October 1917, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1917. PUBLIC WORKS.

For the cause ih a t lacks assistance, For the icrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that tec ciitt do.

At a time like this the Minister of Public Works is a subject for pity rather I than criticism. He has to frame his j Estimates to suit a world in which money. labour, aud materials are scarce ami petting scarcer, ami under the iir-,-unistatue. the Dominion may consider itself lucky that the reduction in tho heavy pre-war expenditure liar, not been much larger, that the Minister in the third year of the war was able to spend C1.278.4f_ from the Public Works Fund, and half a million from other accounts. The Minister expresses his appreciation of the patriotism of those local bodies and settlers who have refrained from pressing demands for what would in normal times be considered important works. We would like to see this spirit more widely diffused. This is not the time for acrid criticism and loud banging of the North Island drum. It is a complaint against Mr. I-'raser that he did not say a word in his Statement of "tie preparation that should have been made, of the nlam- that ought by now to have been perfected, for opening land for settlement by the most expeditious and the most profitable method when labour Ls available.'' What this means is not ,|tiite clear, but one has only to look at the Public Works railway maps of Xew Zealand to sec that there ir, 11 sufficient mileage of railways under construction and planned, to keep the Dominion going for many years. The Fast Coast railway, tie North Auckland line, the Strat-ford-Oagarue line, the South Island Main Trunk line, could alone alisorb all that Xew Zealand is likely to be able to spend on railways for some time. When the end of the war is in sight ; t will be quite time enough to make any plans that may be desirable for pushing 011 construction. •Fust at present the main concern of the Government is money. North Island people may fairly criticise one or two items in the allocation of railway expenditure in the South island, but they should recognise the much bigger fact that £296,000 goes to North Island lines and tlllH.ooo to South Island lines. Lust year's votes were £323,000 and _p_4...00 respectively, and the expenditures £227.400 and £S4.G n li. This is as it should be; the South Island had a long start of the North in railway facilities, and the greater population and larger possibilities of the North deserve and demand much the larger allocation of money for development. We draw attention to the big difference in the votes because it may be lost sight of in a mass of detail, (if the £113,000 to be spent on South Island railways over half goes to the Otira tunnel. We have never liked this enterprise, but it is a reasonable claim that now that so much money has been spent on the line it would be wrong to cease work on the mile or so of r,*.k that must be pierced before the line can be put to its full use. The UIo.OOO voted for the Otago Central is a different matter; it will merely add to a line that has never found favour in the North. The extension of the South Island Main Trunk line northwards towards Blenheim, which ought to be one of the main railwaj- works of the Dominion, gets only £5.000, but for the extension of the branch line from Culverden to Waiau, which is o* the route to Hanmer, in the same district as the Main Trunk line, £20.000 is set down. Probably when this extension is completed the Department will concentrate on the ma,n line extension. Coming to tho North Island railways, it is satisfactory to see that last year's vote (£10,000) for the extension of the railway to Hokianga, is doubled; members of the Parliamentary tour of the Far North in January last were impressed with the need for railway extension to the Hokianga harbour, the waterway of a rich but isolated district. The line from Auckland to Whangarei is allocated altogether 1100,000, against .Sfi.niiO voted last year, and £70.000 expended. The votes for the Kast Coast system, which will open up a very largo amount of good land., arc £1,000 less

than last year, and for the Stratford line, which should be very profitable, the - reduction is £20.000. Iv the latter case, for some unexplained reason, £20,000 of last year's vote was not expended. The importance of the connection between the Auckland and Taranaki railway systems, which ought to have been completed twenty years ago, cannot be too often or too strongly urged. Public works policy should be framed on national lines, and the insular habit of looking at it should be abandoned. The only question about a railway proposal should be, Is the line needed, and should it take precedence of other schemes? Under this method the North Island has nothing to lose, for its claims arc plain for all men to see. The colony is now carrying a load of unprofitable lines in the South Island, constructed under a bad system, but there is no reason why this system should be continued or revived. There is now an inevitable slackening in public works. The Minister cannot get enough labour for the spending of his reduced estimates, and it would be quite wrong to divert labour from production. Indeed, it is a question whether public works do not now absorb too much labour. After the : war, when we sec how we stand and what we can do in public works, there will be greater need than ever for a statesmanlike policy that takes a broad view-, ignores tho political aspect, and spends money solely in the general j interest.