COUNTRY AND COUNTY

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 33, 8 August 1923, Page 6

COUNTRY AND COUNTY

APPEAL .FOR SUPPORT,

In the course of an address to the conference, the Minister of Public .Works referred to the highways legislation. It had. been-framed, he said, with the! best of intentions, and.so far as was humanly possible .'.from; the .'point 'of view ot the Minister, fit-to carry out the ob-jects-for which, at. was-designed. He suggested sincerely that they should give .the legislation a trial, just give it a t™!--. ■ ■!( :»nce they got the ■ scheme mapped out—and so" far as he personally Jvas concerned be was prepared to raeet_'^the demands of. the local authorities iii the desire to do the best thing —then they could go ahead. If .a board tor the North and one for the South could>>do the work better, let them have' two boards. The more feeders there were '"to the railways the better as Minister he would like it, and the less competition the better still he" would like U. (Laughter.) What New Zealand wanted was the best method of transport, ; ; whether it was by rail or road, the cheapest and most efficient transport. •>■ The' Highways Board would get the perspective of the roads of the whole of thg. Dominion, and. the. personnel of the board was a good one. It should bo some satisfaction to some gentlemen that the board would have control of its funds,:and the Minister would have nothing to do with them. He urged that the counties should encourage thp engineers and 'officers of the Departtnent ?''*h a word of praise when praise was deserved. A good word went a long .Way. . (Applause.) The^ Minister made an eloquent plea for better organisation of constructive work,,.more co-operation between local bodies"and the Department, "and a more direct allocation of money for the improvement :of the road facilities, and other work. The organisation in connection with road construction should be on lines of co-operation, and a certificate from a competent county engineer as to,, the carrying out, of the work for which the money was allptted.'should be sufficient for-the' Government.' .(Hear, hear.) The Public Works engineers might well be relieved to carrjr.the more important work which had. to be done by the Department. Of course there would be the necessary check on expenditure and adequate supervision.. The organisation should be such that when the county councils submitted their plans, they would go through? automatically. The counties should be adequately staffed with engineers. Road-making had become a profession, and the product of the university should have a chance to do some of the work. He appealed for co-operation. On the question of the union of counties, the Minister of Internal Affairs said he regretted that the merging of counties had not been carried out. The obstacle was the Government subsidy, which in the aggregate would be less in the merged counties than under the existing division. It was proposed to introduce legislation during the present session, if possible, providing that on the union of two or more- counties, tlie subtidy in the agregate paid for the district

should remain as it was under the present constitution. The Minister outlined draft provisions, enabling the merging of counties. There would be no attempt at compulsory merging.