THE MOTOR.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 151, 26 June 1912, Page 18

THE MOTOR.

5 ;ITS USE IN THE COUNTRY. NEED K)e"gOOI> EOADS. ;' (By "Autos.") „ The present bcom in motoring in New Zealand derives its greatest strength from the increasing vogue of the motor in;.th© regions far from the city. It 13 iflie squatter, the fanner, the settler, aiid the country resident generally who are buying the pars, -which are now coming into this country in larger numUers than. ever. They find the aiitomofeLle not only a pleasant vehicle of locomotion but a decided help to them in. their chosen vocation. New Zealand has fivr railways in proportion to her area, ut she has a good, many roads and fbese dre better than the roads of most ■fenr countries. It is quite certain that Ihey axe better, for instance, than the average American country road, and. yet $i."no country of the world has the automobile made such, strides as an almost nniversal means of transportation as in the States. It is estimated that half a million motor-cars are running to-day 1 in America, and this number is going up ot*a rate of well over a hundred thousand, a year. One firm alone in Deceit, the centre of the motor trade in. 'America, is putting out over seventy Otfmsaild cars this year.. - Th© American farmer has fottnd ike jmotor a genuine blessing to him. Bad -though the toads, may be between his fiata afld the nearest town, the car will take him over them, in. less than half ■&» time occupied by' the old hottse-shay. i£ the roads are reasonably good — and the Good Roads Movement in afifeading §11 over th© United States— m« cut* uhowE tip even better in compai-JsoiL All ibis hde tended to revohitiofii&e country life in America among the many fat mere fortunai* enough to posses* a motof-caf. iThe automobile has brought the town, lou him, just ac earlier it brought the country to the townsfolk and city people. With ite rapid individual trainsportation it ©yens up life, giving oi tte advantages of town and country to the residents of either. In this way it has served the country well, for it "«■« done away much, of the monotony and eoii-. tode, which have always been regarded as the principal drawbacks io the life of the working farmer. !H© is no longer a fixture on his place — a practical serf o£ the soil — but he has now the freedom pf the whole country side, with its j towns, cities, and other attractions, wherever the long high road leads. j * ,So it i* coming to be in New Zealand, j One h*» only to visit the agricultural and pastoral and dairy shows to see (ivihat & hold the motor-car is getting i over the country. At a chow held hi , a-emall town< of some 3000 inhabitants X counted no fewer than eighty cans ; j Jit a l^rgei 1 **how th*re w^j© well over 190, and this qulle apart from the cars garaged in the town itself. To the farmer ami the fietth'i' out back the Wotar-cat* is becomin"; more of a nece«eity than a. luxury, for it quickly pays j for itsejl in th© jsaving of time and tne improvement of conditions for the farmer j and hvi family. Suppose he lives thirty j mites away over av-crajre roacLs, from the j neaiett mniic. A Mt-ii to town uicaiib j two da\e at lcatt uxmy lioni home, pro- j babijr three, if ihepa ia much. busincssj

to be done. The motor-car will take the farmer and his family there and back and leave ample time for business and pleasure, shopping and visiting, in on« day alone, 'ihis means a threat deal where labour is scare© and time te precious. Ifc actually pays the farmer to have a. motor-car. In other ways the coming of the motor has benefited the country* The doctor hae" now a means of locomotion that will enable him to carry on his large practice with all it£ arduous and widespread work to much greater advantage than wa« possible with the best horse and gig. With the car he caa rush away to emergency cases, saving many precious minutes, where delay might be dangerou* or fatal, JJjhe country doctor ha« much of thiawOTK io do, and one can lxset appreciate itby a comparison of two «toriw of maternity cases — one Borne yeai* ago and the other fairly recently. A country doctor with. a large practice in Taraiiaki, t&Uiisding over the remoter backblock?, was summoned some yearo ago to go to a farmer's place beyond Whangamomema to attend a dangerous confin* meat case. He was a plucky man. this doctoTj and he got his instrument* together quickly, had his beet hack saddled, and set off to cover the forty mile* on horseback over some of the muddi«fc road* in New Zealand. H4 galloped with a felay here and there Tight through the night through the mud, that sometimes rose to the horse's girth. He got there itiet in time, and saved the mother's life. The other case was similar, except for the fact that it was ia a district of fin© metalled roads. This time it was ' the squatter's wife, and the squatter himself drove over the thirty miles into town in under an nour in his big highpowered car. He took the doctor with him in a little over half an hour, and his wife's life was saved. ,' Naturally the question arises : Would the motor-car have been of much use in the circumstance of the first case, with ite long journey over muddy roads? This, of course, is a question. The motor is very severely handicapped by bad roads, more so than the horse. Really/ the problem of the motor-car in the country is largely one of roads. But the modern motor-car — especially some of the American vehicles, designed to tackle almost any road, for it stands on record that one of these cars actually ascended and descended Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles — will go through a great deal more than the layman imagines. Still, the better the ioa.il tlw better the running, and that is 1 why the spread of motoring in the country means better roads. It is well known that the best roads in New Zealand are in Hawkes Bay, Wairarapa, and Canterbury^ where the motor attain* a pre-eminence tinreached elsewhere./ Whether the roads attracted the motor or the motor made the roads 'id a firifl point foi< argument} probably one helps the other, and the effect as cumulative in the improvement of the broad highway. It is rather hard that the one section of the* community which would derive i the very greatest benefit front the motor is practically debarred from using it. I refer to the pioneer Pettier" in. the ■ backblocks. What a boofl. the motor would b6 to this man afld hte family, living, sometimes for years, a victim of ! rio i oads or bad roadi, beyond the pale of civilisation. One has only to travel through gome parts of the great Main Trunk Country to realise what kind of live£ the«e people haye 1 to lead in the remoter" regions, served only by bridletracks or ttnmetalled roads, available for only a few months in the cummer, and even then liable to become impassable -with a day^br two of rain. Cases of nervous, physical, and Mental breakdown are not bo uncommon among our advance guard of pioneers that the uttaoet should not be done to improve their conditions by giving theta better and quicker communication with the main avenues of civilised life. Good loads are essential, and good roads should be made at all cost*. We should hear" far less of forfeited State leases afld allotments if only there were good roads, giving the settler a chance of } getting in and out of the bush. A good roads movement," such as they have in the United Stateß, is seri« oußly wanted for our New Zealand backblocks. It is wrong, when the standard of living has gone up so high, since the earliest pioneers did the initial work of carving out homes in New Zealand, that the people in the l'emoter s backblocks should be so penalised in every way by being cut off from civilisation. All up the Waitewheria Valley from Mangaroa, and through to Aria, where the coach service ends — a distance of some twentyeight miles — there was settlement all along the way. The dwellings ranged from rough log-cabins to fairly respectable houses, but all the road these settlers had until this Easter was a three or four foot pack track. This has now been widened on both sides of the dividing ridge, leaving still about three miles of narrow track on top. But v/hat a road it is 1 I tramped through a couple of months ago, and it was simply a mire most part of the way. Still it was better than The original track, and settlers have to be thankful for small mercies. But what a country a good main road would make of it ! Truly, what the Main Trunk country suffers from most just now — especially the northern part of it — is lack of roads or merely bad roads. If it were properly roaded, settlement would proceed at a vastly enhanced pace. The progress of the line through the Southern Main Trunk district as far as Taumarunui has done a great deal to remove the reproach that used to be levelled at the roads about Taihape, Ohakune, and BaetihL There ia a more or less metalled l'oiid quite feasible for motoring now, though the further end may have beeii somewhat neglected all the way from' Wellington to Taumarunui, where it cornea to a full stop. There are many good side roads — to Pipiriki from the junction at Ohakune and the other way to Tokaaliu through Waiouru, and through Te Hoi'o, Moawhango, and Inland Patea front Taihape to Napier. Hunning up from lTeildiflg, with cross toads from the Main Trunk id the Eangitikei Valley, at Hunterville and Mangaweka, there are quite a number of fair metalled roads up to Apiti, Bangiwahia, Waittiiia, and Eewa, and back to the RangitikeL On the western side thei'6 B_ra also Sortie fairly good roads along the watershed north of Hunterville. Thd Northern Main Trunk country — the King Country proper— is much worse off for roads. In fact, so far as the motorist is concerned it is a land of no roads — a roadlees region. The main north road — as it is called in the map — is only an apology for a highway. Motors have been over it on several occasions, but very seldom under their own steam, as it were, all the way. The road runs from New Plymouth to Te Ktiiti via Waitara, Ur«nui, Tongaporutu, Mokau Ferry, Awakino, Mahoenui, and Piopio. Most of it is unmetalled, and after rain difficult for a motor-car to traverse. There are two big hilk to cross over on the way — Mt. Messenger between Ui'enui atid tlie Mokau, ami Taumatamauo between Awakino arkl Mahoeuui. Thete jue al*i> fcectiuiih between l'iopio and Te Kuiti liable to be Hooded by the upper wateits of the Mokau, as they are at present. Still, bad a* the road is. il constitutes the only alternative at present to the East Coast loute to Auckland \in Xapier and Taupe Moth, roads :\yr bad. but ill" .Mokau-roi'd takes tin- j.ulm fi«r badnr-.--It is> quite pofcible that within a-u-other couple g| vetuy there will bo aa-,

the road is metalled, it should become a favourite route for motorists to Auckland. As the Stratford-Ongarue-road comes to a dead end at the latter place on the Main Trunk, the motorist bound for Auckland would have to leave the road about two miles east of Mangaroa a,nd strike up the Waitewhena Valley, over the new Toad to Aria, which should be open through by next summer. At Aria he will proceed by the coach-road — still unmetalled — on to Piopio on the Awakino-Te Kuiti-road. From there the road runs right down the Waipa. Valley to meet the Rotorua-road at Frankton. If fifteen miles oi' lees of easy road were made between Taumarunui and Ongarue — and, though it is marked on some maps, I understand from the Lands Department that there is no road — there will then, also be through connection between Wellington and Auckland by the beautiful central route, following the Main Trunk as far as Ongarue and then deviating west to Ohura, from which the Waitewhena Valley-road would be followed to Te Kuiti, as already described. Now, this system of roads should be Completed, if the country is to get tho full benefit of settlement. The connecting link from Taumarunui to Ongarue should be put in as coon as possible, or. ha default, some other main road from

burnt papa is the best proposition. This material has already been tried with great success for some miles along the road at Whangamomona. The papa is burnt in huge stacks composed of layers of firewood and papa, built up to a considerable h-aight in many tiers. The whole pile is covered with dirt when once the tire is going, und <the action corresponds to that 61" charcoal-burning. It is really a sort of opeli-air improvised kiln. The blue papa comes out in rich terra-cottu. fragments as hard as the hardest brick. It is applied in the same way as ordinary metal, and the lesult is an udniiramH road for ordinary traffic. The stretch at Whangamomona over which I travelled some three or foui 1 yeaite ago had been laid dowa several years before, and had not, so far a£ I could leaitl, been repaired since. Yet it was in beautiful older — a perfect road for motoring, something like a tiled floor in texture and appearance. Its colour is rich red — a great relief from the white limestone or shell-rock roads or the grey river-metal highways. For motoring it would seem to be simply ideal. It is more resilient than broken stone metal, and practically dustleßs. It seems to absorb rain like a pumice road, but the surface remains good. The objection to papa is the cost. This comes to considerably more than riverbed mebal, where that is close and handy to the road. But the alternative to papa in the Ohura and Northern Main Trunk country is metal carried sixty or seventy miles from the crushing plant at Mount Egmont, reached by a branch line from Waiptiku. The cost of this would be greater still. There is no reason, also, why with, improved forms of kilns papa should not be burnt more cheaply than it is now. There is plenty of coal in easily accessible seams riglit through the Tangarakau, and this might be used with economy in the burning of papa, as there will be no other outlet for it for some years until the railway is through. Then, although round Whangamomona, where the country is already cleared on both bides of the route of the railway for some distance, and firewood is not readily available in large quantities, further in

geated. Soads> roadSj more roads, and better roads, ehould b© always the cry of the settler^ whether 1 he be motorist or not; the motoring community, whether they travel by car or cycle $ the merchant and the stoi'ekfiepei 1 , who desire to facilitate trade and intercourse in the baekblocks and throughout tlie country. Much of New Zealand bus already got good roads, and these are being Imjjroved through the spread of motoring ; but inauy of the newly-eettled districts are starved for lack of ioade. They have undoubtedly the tirst call. A system of Dominion highways, such as they have in France, and such ub they ale getting in England, through the revenue, from the petrol and car taxes, allocated by the Rood Board to tho improvement of roads— such a fiystein We cannot expect here just yet, as the country it* only the age of the allotted span of life—threescore years aJid ten. But a united movement, a co-operation among all sections of the community, would effect a great deal. onould the Government ask where the money is to come from to improve the roads that need improvement, and make the roads that ought to be made, the answer might be made— through an annual tax on cars and cycles, such as they have i^ England— all the revenue to go to certain specific improvements in roads. I feel sure that no motoriet could object to this. He would simply be taxed according to the size and power and value of his car for his own benefit, or at least for the general benefit of the motoring community. Revenue from this source, of course, would not go vei'y far at preseni^-it might bring in £30,000 a year, at a rough estimate ; but it would be an increasing revenue, on the principle that the better the roads, the more the motors. Such revenue might be supplemented under a decentralised local government scheme by loans raised specially by local bodies for the roads which they are specially concerned in making and improving. One thing is quite certain, all such money spent on our roads would be money very well spent.

other route possible to connect Auckland and Wellington. This will be by Stratford, Whangamomona, Tangarakau Gorge, Tatu, and Mangaroa, along the route of the Stratford — Te Koura railway connecting Taranaki and the Main Trunk. No doubt this road, of which only a dozen milee or so *emain to be formed, will be metalled most part of the way — with burnt papa in default of broken stone, where that is unattainable. _ As this road parallels the railway it is certain to be much improved, just as the Main Trunk roads in the central section were improved to transport material to the railway construction works. It has already been shown that the railway made tho road* in the district south of^ Taumarunui and east of the Wanganui _ River ; probably something similar will happen with the Strat-ford-OngarUß-road — at present one of the worst in New Zealand, even where it is fully formed. If this takeß place and

Taumarunui, to connect with the Ohuraroad. Quite apart from tho value of tho road as establishing through connection between the North and South by road, of which there is now only tho t second-rate Waitara-Awakino-Te Kuiti route, it would serve tho district of the Ohura better than tho present communication with Ongarue. It may be added that a railway service road ie being constructed from Okahukura, alongside the east end of the east and west railway. Okahukura is only about eeyen miles from Taumarunui, co a road joining the two would be the simplest way out of the difficulty. Now, as to metal for the roads. There is an absolute dearth of metal from the Ohura to the end of the papa country ia Taranaki proper. Limestone is abundant enough in the Mokau country, and the Awakino and Aria roads might very well be metalled with <thiß. For the rest of the country, it seems to me that

by the Tangarakau and Ohura the bush fctill stands in its virgin slate for miles, and the ratas, maires, and other firewood timber is right alongside the road for papa burning. Really, this process should be taken up 011 a large scale at convenient places along the road, and sufficient papa burnt to do all the metalling in the immediate neighbourhood. The road co built would kbt for many years. It is the fault of an over-centralised 6ystem of government that the main roads in this part of the country are not already in first-cluss order. It should he the first object of the settlers to secure good roads by bringing prcesure to bear on the Government, and it should be one of the main objects of the newly-formed Automobile Association to co-operate in the good roads movement, and endeavour to bring_ about at the earliest, possible time satisfactory through communication with Auckland by the central route, with a motor highway along the lines sug-