A RADING SCHEME

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 94, 22 April 1933, Page 13

A RADING SCHEME

TO PROVIDE WORK

Writing to Mr. D. J. McGowan regarding the latter's roading proposal to absorb the unemployed, Mr. A. R. Donaldson, president of the Wanganui Rotary Club, states that the plan" agrees with the views, he himself Has expressed for months past. "The idea of such a scheme is generally admitted >to be a good one, and I have not yet heard anything uttered against it. A concrete road, say, from Auckland to Wellington, and another from Nelson to the Bluff would absorb most of the unemployed, and at the same time, would provide an asset which would be of untold benefit to future generations. "The financing of such a scheme could be readily arranged if the Government would issue the necessary Treasury notes-, using the present unemployment taxation as a repayment measure. Thus, if the Government spent £6,000,000 a year for five years, it would take approximately seven and a half years to repay on the present basis of tax-. In the meantime the cement works, timber industry (for many millions of > feet of timber would be required on the jobs), the iron industry (for making reinforcements for the concrete), the railways (for carting the material), and the road transport (for carting from the railways), all would benefit; and the immense deposits of the best concrete shingle in the world, which are available on the East Coast, would be opened up and put to practical use, absorbing a vast number of. the unemployed in the process. I saw the making of a portion of the Sydney-Newcastle road—a wonderful job. The concrete is a foot thick, reinforced with steel mesh (like a hospital bedstead), and the surface is ideal for travelling on. The plans and specifications for such a job as the road from Auckland to Wellington could be prepared by the Public AVorks Department and duplicated so that every county or borough engineer en route could have _ a copy, and these engineers could supervise the work through their particular areas (they possibly would welcome having a job to do these times). "The whole scheme is one which could easily be financed by the issue of Treeasury bonds redeemable by means of the unemployment tax. If four millions are collected by tax per annum, a like amount of Treasury bonds could be destroyed and the debt wiped out in tinder eight years, by which time, surely, the world would be back on sane lines." .