THE GRANT TO ROAD BOAEDS.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4722, 12 October 1872, Page 3

THE GRANT TO ROAD BOAEDS.

To the Editor : Sir,— ln Thursday's Cross appears a letter from Mr. A. McDonald, in which he says :—": — " Withdrawing any further aid to Road Boards I quite agree with, for the policy that expends loans in paying the interest of other loans is certainly ruinous in the extreme." Now, it may be owing to my ignorance of the mysteries of finance that I cannot see how giving aid to Road Boards can bo called " expending the loan in paying the interest of other loans." On this piinciple Mr. McDonald would consider all public works constructed with borrowed money as "ruinous in the extreme;" for is not road -making as much and as necessary a public work as railway-making 1 But if he believes in expending the loan in the construction of railways, how can he object to the Government aid to Road Boards ? I think Mr. Gillies's proposal to deprive the Highway Boards of the General Government grant cannot be condemned too strongly. When he advocated such a measuie he must have been either culpably igaoranb of the immense benefit which, through the country districts, the whole piovince is deriving from this annual grant, or he wanted the money for some pet scheme of his own, e.g., returning confiscated lands. Under any circumstances this aid to Road Boards is money well spent, but when, through somebody or other's stupidity, that mischievous 6th clause of the Empoweimg Act has been brought into operation in the small country districts, the General Government grant is all the Boad Boaids have to look to for funds to carry on necessary works, and prevent those of the previous year from falling into disrepair. For unless new roads are carefully attended to for the next few seasons after construction they very &oon become money and labour expended m vain. But not only would our wise Super have deprived us of what we had Leen promised and had relied on, (but in his omniscience said he had reason to believe we had rather not have it ! He should have added, after the manner of Artemus Ward, "This is a goak." I confess it is difficult to see who was expected to laugh, but perhaps his jokes are self-sup-porting, and need no other encouragement than the author's private and solitary cachin nation. I will venture to say not one man in twenty in the country districts is of the same opinion as Mr. McDonald with reference to this matter Under the Empowering Act prohibited from taxing ourselves to any useful extent, and theu.depnved of all outside aid, we should have had to thank the late Government for having placed the Highway Boards in a position which would have rendered it impossible for them to carry out the object for which they were

created, that object being the all-importaat one in a new country of road-making. — I am, &c, Scoria, Howick.