THE LACK OF DEFINITE POLICIES

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 140, 11 December 1919, Page 6

THE LACK OF DEFINITE POLICIES

Speaking on Monday night in the rapidly developing district of Martinborough—where, as everywhere, transport is one of the prime factors in progress—Sir Joseph Ward said:

The Government must provide ample funds for the maintenance of the main roads, leaving tho actual maintenance work to tlie county councils, and should ' also provide more funds for the intersecting roads.

This i 3 a little more definite than* the platitudinous formula which ws lately quoted from the Reform manifesto ; but it might be more definite still. Sir Joseph Ward appears to make- it clear that the work of construction and maintenance should remain in the ha_ds of tha local bodies, who are to receive from tho Government stronger financial support. But ia he prepared to create a new body, of technical' capacity and national vision, to act as intermediary between the central purse and the local bodies; to be an authorise!' of main road expenditure and a supervisor of work done; and to act generally on the lines of the Country Roads Board , created by the Victorian system? Into the details of that system we have not space to go. We touched them broadly on 2nd October, and sine© then the subject has been publicly discussed and its main issues are fairly well known. Is none of the political leaders prepared to lead on a question so important? Will none of them commit himself to the principle of a Roads Board strong enough to supervise and co-ordinate the road work of local bodies, without relieving the latter of their responsibilities?

The real -reason, of course, of the timidity of party leaders is an unstatesmanlike fear of losing votes. Any roads policy leads directly or ultimately to a local government reform policy, of which Mr. Massey is as afraid as he is of antiaggregation; and Sir Joseph Ward is hardly more courageous. A party strong in the cities, and weak in the country, evades the local government problem because of the consideration of votes it may gain in the country; and a party strong in the country, and weak in the cities, similarly evades, because of the country votes it may lose. So the difference is mainly the difference between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. But we would like to suggest that a useful and definite instalment of a roads policy might be adopted without setting any dogs barking either in country or in city. Discussing this subject on 2nd October we admitted that any Government, in placing a roads policy on the Statute Book, " must go to work with one eye on good roads and another on the cherished' principle of local home rule." Allowing for this tactical limitation, is it beyond the capacity of New Zealand statesmanship to go-to work with both eyes and to adopt a compromise that will satisfy each requirement? Has not the Counties Conference itself come sufficiently near to the Roads Board idea to make it possible for a political leader to affirm the principle of co-ordination and supervision \>i main roads expenditure on a national basis?

One of the reasons of the prevalent disgust with politics and politicians is their constitutional evasiveness.' The political formula has been worked almost to a standstill. Shufflers though they are themselves when it suits them to be, the extremist / candidates are yet winning votes through the traditional shuffling of party politics, which has bred in some electors a mad desire to vote for anything new because it is different. There is only one way to check this tendency. Tho cure lies in responsible leadership that has definite proposals and that means to stick to them.