The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1932. THE HIGHWAYS FUND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 256, 28 October 1932, Page 6

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

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1932. THE HIGHWAYS FUND.

Pot the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For Hie future in the distant, And the good thai we can dn.

Motorists will welcome the assurance given yesterday by the Prime Minister that the Main Highways Fund is to be retained, and that the Government has no intention of diverting the proceeds of motor taxation into the Consolidated Fund. Roading conditions in New Zealand have been greatly improved in recent yeJirs, and it is essential to hold the advance made. This can be done only by adequate Expenditure on maintenance, and this expenditure, as shown by a member of the deputation in Wellington yesterday, has fallen behind to the extent of afc least £200.000. In other words, the highways of the Dominion are deteriorating annually by that amount. The Prime Minister was reminded by the deputation of the willingness shown by motorists to help ihe country's finances during the depression, but there was a limit to the help that could be given from motor taxation. That limit, it was urged, had been exceeded; and it was argued that the National Expenditure Commission, in recommending that the highways fund be abolished, had not giveft sufficient weight to the interests of motorists. There is always the danger, when money is urgently wanted, that special funds will be drawn upon for general needs. The road funds have been raided by the British Treasury. By the end of next March, over a period of two years, New Zealand road users will have contributed a sum of £2,512,400 to relieve general and local taxation. In view of this motorists have a strong ease when they submit that their fund is for a special purpose, and that they are entitled to ask that the money should be spent for that purpose.

Maintenance work, it should be recognised, is on a very different footing from new construction. By the borrowing of large sums of capital New Zealand has raised the standard of its roading. If this expenditure has been on too lavish a scale, that is all the more reason for conserving the roads, and the best way to do this is through the activities of the Highways Board, which has given proof of its efficiency and has a record which stands high upon the State spending departments. The work it has done should be carried on within the limits of restricted funds, and motorists may hope that some day a point will be reached where taxation can be reduced.