"PREMATURE."

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 138, 13 June 1929, Page 7

"PREMATURE."

HARBOUR BRIDGE SCHEME.

HON. E. W. ALISON'S OPINION.

"HUGE DEFICIT" FORECAST,

'"Shareholders will doubtless anticipate some remarks being made with reference to the suggested bridge across the Waitemata Harbour," said the Hon. E. W. Alison, chairman of directors of the Devonport Steam Ferry Company, at the annual meeting this afternoon. "I do not propose to enlarge upon either the proposal or the published propaganda, however misleading many of the published statements in connection therewith may be," he continued. "My reason for withholding criticism of the bridge proposition is that the Government is intending to set up a commission to inquire into and report upon the whole proposal. "It was freely circulated recently that the present Government was prepared to undertake the erection of a bridge across the Waitemata as a national work, and that no financial responsibility would be imposed upon property owners. The probability of the Government doing so, is, however, in my opinion, very remote, and it is unthinkable that property owners will agree to the borrowing of the enormous sum which would bo required to construct a bridge, across the Waitemata Harbour and the approaches thereto, and saddle themselves with the excessive taxation which would undoubtedly have to be imposed to meet the huge annual deficit in receipts over expenditure which_would be entailed. "The erection of a bridge across the Waitemata, as proposed by the Bridge Association, is as "premature and unnecessary as when the Auckland Canals and Inland Waterways Commission reported in 1921, after -exhaustive inquiry and evidence as to 'whether a bridge should be constructed across Waitemata Harbour to connect the City of Auckland with the northern district.' The finding of the commission was:—'We are of opinion that with the present population the expenditure that would be necessary is not justified.'"