HIGHWAYS FUNDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 208, 3 September 1929, Page 5

HIGHWAYS FUNDS.

NO CURTAILMENT. THIS YEAR'S PROGRAMME. SOUTH ISLAND WELL TREATED. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. The Minister of Public Works, the Hon. E. A. Ransom, said to-night, in regard to the protest meeting of Canterbury motorists over highway finance, that so many incorrect assumptions were placed before those present that he felt obliged to correct several of the speakers. It was impossible, said the Minister, to allow to go unchallenged such an inaccurate statement as that made bv the president, Mr. J. A. Flesher, to the effect that the South Island had hitherto suffered under the administration of the Main Highways Board. "This criticism cannot stand the test of actual results." commented the Minister, "in view of the fact that both for maintenance and for construction the rate of subsidy lias been higher for the South Island than for the North. This would hardly indicate any unfairness on the part of the Main Highways Boai I, unless it is unfairness to +li</Noivji Island. The criticism is strikingly discounted by the following figures, showing the expenditure of the board in the South Island since its inception: — Main- Constructenance. tion. 1024-2.-; £4:;.o:>o £:«,700 J;! I '-.;--.!! '>7.0*-, 1026-2* ].->4,l(iS 110,009 176.01!) 57.643 lOl'S-lK 2.aJ,I:U 220,822 1020-30 (proposed).. 400,000 423,000 Local Body Subsidy Claims. Discussing the statement of another speaker, that local bodies had approved 4t)i miles of construction, involving the total expenditure of £220,000, the Minister remarked: "What this means is that after consulting together, these local bodies had agreed that if they could get their own terms from the Highways Board (in most cases involving very liberal subsidies, and also, in the majority of the projects, an advance of the total cost of the works from the centra] authority) they wi-uld proceed with the work.' This was all agreed on mutually, the Minister pointed out, before the proposals had been submitted to the board.