The Hawera Star. MONDAY, JULY 28, 1930. PETROL TAX AND HIGHWAYS FUND.

Hawera Star, Volume L, 28 July 1930, Page 6

The Hawera Star.

MONDAY, JULY 28, 1930. PETROL TAX AND HIGHWAYS FUND.

Delivered every evening by 6 o'olook in Hawera. Mauaia, Kaupokonui, Otakeho, Oeo, Pihama, Opunake, Normanby. Okaiawa Eltham, Ngaere, Mangatolu, Kaponga, Awatuna, Te Kiri, Mahos, Lowgarth, Manutahi: Kakaramea, Alton, Hurle.v ville Patea, Whenuakura, VVaverley. Mokoia, Whakarnara, Ohangai, Meretnere, Fraser Road, and Ararata.

Lt is evident that the increased petrol tax is going to meet with the determined opposition of motorists, and, judging by a Christchurch Press Association message printed on Saturday, there are also murmurings abroad which indicate that the two opposition parties in the House may overcome their mutual dislike sufficiently to force the Government to withdraw this new tax. Motorists are meeting all over the country this week to give voice to their indignation and the motorists of this district have been invited to attend a meeting on Wednesday to consider the proposals in all their aspects. Doubtless at all these meetings much will be said about the raid on the Highways Funds and there is every chance that the real issues will become somew r hat obscured in the public mind. The Government j is certain to be charged in some places with filching the motorists’ contributions, but before swallowing that entirely, the motorists, and the public generally, should examine the question closely. The “Dominion” on Saturday referred in scathing terms to “this unblushing raid” on the Highways Funds, but. on its own showing the Government proposes in the first place mainly to deprive the Highways Board of some of its extraordinary privileges. For instance, the annual grant of £35,000 of public money will be discontinued; the annual free-of-interest 1 loan of £200,000 will be discontinued; interest on past free loans will be charged and will return £61,300; the charges for local body subsidies (£220,000) will be transferred to the I Highways Revenue A/c. These adjustments will cost the Highways Fund some £576,000, and w r ill reduce the spending power of the Board by that amount, if the loss be not made up from some other soerce. Now, the Governtment has found another source of money-supply, and it. is in regard to that that the motorists have a genuine grievance. In his Financial Statement the Minister of Finance says: “To pro- “ vide the necessary funds to enable the “Highways Account to meet all these

liabilities without disturbing the pro

“sent, financial arrangements of the “Highways Board, a resolution lias “been passed increasing the petrol-tax ( “from 4<l to 7d a gallon. For llic re- “ minder of the financial year the addi“tional 3d a gallon will, it is esti- “ mated, bring in £450,000. Of this

amount £310,000 will be required for

“the liabilities taken over from the “Consolidated Fund, leaving £134,000 “for additional expenditure on sub“sidiarv highways through outlying “districts. In a full year about “£350,000 should be available for the “latter purpose." There is only one item in the Highways Funds adjustments which can lie described as a

J“ steal ” and that is the charging of inlorosr on past free loans. That is ecr--11 fiinlv a most unblushing piece of piracy and the sort of breach of eon-trar-t which anybody other than the Government could only do at the risk jof a legal action for flagrant breach of jcontract. But motorists should bear in mind that though they have been called upon for heavy contributions to highways finance, the items which figure in the other adjustments represent contributions which have been made in the past by the general taxpayer. The general taxpayer has a right to ask why should the Highways Board I!nances be bolstered up and kept in such a comfortable state of credit, when the financial condition of the country is depressed and other public works crying out in vain for assistance? Judging by some of the work undertaken by the Board, or by local bodies with the Board's assistance, it would seem that the Board is hard pressed to find ways and means of spending its'

money. We have ourselves seen in Taranaki road deviations undertaken which were obviously not necessary in some .cases and, in others, certainly not : urgently required. A deviation now in progress in North Taranaki provides a classic instance of unnecessary expenditure—a straight-cut being put in to eliminate a winding curve which cannot, by the greatest stretch of imagination be regarded as a danger to traffic or as causing a waste of motorists’ precious time. If the Government proposed to close down on all unnecessary highways work, then we believe that the motorists would have no legitimate grievance arising out of the adjustments, with the exception we have already mentioned. But the Government does not propose to make the Highways Board follow a more sane and economical rate of expenditure; it does not propose to cut the highways coat according to the cloth at its disposal. The coat is to be as big and as extravagantly decorated as before—and the motorists are to be asked to provide more cloth out of an extra petrol tax. That is where the weakness lies, and if the motorists talk less about the injustice of calling upon the Highways Board to do with a little less

money and concentrate their energies upon the inequity and lack of need for Ihe additional petrol tax, they should lie able to put up a case that the Government can answer only in one way.