HIGHWAYS BOARD

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17814, 13 July 1923, Page 6

HIGHWAYS BOARD

SOUTH ISLAND DEPUTATION. MINISTERS IN REPLY. (•racni. to "tkb nm.l W'ELLINGTON. July 12. The South Island members of Parliament waited upon the Prime Mm«tor and the Minister of Public Works today regarding the constitution of the Main Highways Board. Mr Sidey, who introduced the deputation, explained what had. happened in regard to the legislation that constituted the Board. Ho said that when the matter first came beforethe Minister there was unanimity, but the.Minister objected to two Boards on the ground of expense. The bouth Island, however, gave way on the understanding that the Board .was to he composed of four representatives, and a Bill w.is introduced to give effect to that understanding. The Bill u-as, howc. or, amended in the Upper House, winch insisted that there should be a" additional representative of the. counties for each island. Thus the original arrangement was departed from, and there was now a Board of six instead of four. He suggested that a small lor the. South and one for the North could do the work just as cheaply and cxpeditiouslv as the one. Board for both, islands* Further, there was a feeling, oi doubt in thoS:mth as to whether owing to the personnel of the present Board, the South, Island could expect to receive as fair consideration as it was entitled to. On a Board of six there was onlv one specially representing tuc South island. Another matter was that the amount of money had to be> allocated according to the number of vehicles in each island, but that did not apply to the grant from the Public Works Fund of £200,000 a year. Then, again, the conditions of the two island* were very different in -some respects. Road material was much more easily obtained in the South, and there was not nearly so much work undone, it seemed a' pitv that after having been unanimous in the first instance, events had arisen under which they could not agree, but there was a great deal ol feeling over it in the South. Mr Bitehener said there was. no doubt that there was a growing feeling of dissatisfaction in the Smith over this Board, and the local bodies thou;,lit that it was centralisation in its worst form. Had it not been for the amendment last year they would not have, had practically any representation on the Board. He was sorry that they had not approached the Government before the Board had met. If they had done so they might have had a better chance of success. Mr Holland said that the counties on the West Coast were all in favour of two Boards. He did not agree that the South had, not problems as great as the North. On the West Coast and throughout the South Island there Avere roading problems more serious than in other parts of New Zealand. Two Boards with three members each could deal more readily with the work that had to bo done, and, if necessary, there could be joint action agreed to on anything special at a meeting of the two Boards in Wellington, under the presidency of Mr Furkert or Mr Coates. Mr Coates, in reply, said he did not want to go into the whole question of main highways, but he would pointi out that Mr Sidey himself must accept a great portion of the responsibility with other members of Parliament, for the alteration made in the Bill after the agreement had been come to in the first instance, because when the Bill came back from the Upper House the amendment was agreed to without a division. No ivoice was raised in the House against the alteration in the representation. Mr Sidey had agreed to the amendment that was made; so did all of them. He (Mr Coates) had' done his best to stick to the original agreement, but if Parliament passed a thing unanimously, not very much could be said against it afterwards i though he,, as a- matter of fact, had pointed out that he thought the Bill wouict bo jeopardised by further representation of the County Councils. However, the idea of the one Board was that they might get the correct perspective of the conditions that prevailed throughout Now Zealand. It was not a question of a scheme for each Island; it was a question of adopting principles with the political element eliminated. The scheme was national in its character, and in no way parochial. It was necessary, therefore, to have centralisation. Decentralisation was not what was needed. The Highways Board must decide what roads should be improved. It had power to select any road. Then the contributions for that road would be allotted, and the local authorities would have to construct it with the assistance of the contribution and to the standard decided upon. The first thing was to get a good view of the needs of New Zealand. Ho suggested that in the meantime the one Board should be allowed to stand. Later on it might be found necessary and more expedient to administer the expenditure by a group selected from the South and a group selected from the North. Mr Bitehener had said the roads were better in the South than in the North, but Mr Holland, on the other hand, did not agree with that. If the roads were better in the South than in the North, and the money was not wanted there, then it could bo available for the North. Several members of the deputation: It is wanted there. Mr Coates said he took it that the allocation of the money would be with a view to bringing the roads up to a