The Star Delivered every evening' by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Opunake, Otakeho, Manutahi, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea. Waverley. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1913. PUBLIC ESTIMATES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 10 December 1913, Page 4

The Star Delivered every evening' by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Opunake, Otakeho, Manutahi, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea. Waverley. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1913. PUBLIC ESTIMATES.

The debate on the Public Works Estimates was mainly of the tv quoque order. There was a good deal of recrimination. Ministers were accused on the one hand of extravagance, on the other of not\expending votes; and they retorted either that the criticism was not true or that where it was true they had not been half as l»ad a[& ' their predecessors. This sort of dis-; cussion is y not very informing or helpful, and as usual after it had gone on for some hours the whole of the schedules, representing a prospective ex.penditiire of, say, two millions of money, were* put through with but practically little real consideration. It all emphasises the necessity for discovering some better system of examination and' control of public works expenditure. Mr Fraser has' proy TOised consideration of this aspect of-1 the matter with respect to grants for roads. Indeed, he made a similar promise last year,, and was unable to redeem it, and now renews it. That he will, be successful in his quest for a solution is perhaps doubtful. It is rather to be feared that it is easier to see the unbusinesslike, degrading character of the present system than to find a remedy, or at any rate an acceptable remedy. Mr Newman, member for ; Rangitikei, who posed as a disappointed man in' that his district had got about one-ninth of what it had applied for, remarked that the present system of grants was as bad as it could be, for'members spent the session dunning Ministers, and he might have added, and this is really the core of the trouble, that on their return home they are largely judged on the results of this dunning rather than on any other work done. - Mr Newman agreed that the work of distribution of available money was by no means easy, and that, howlever well done, was certain to be criticised as unfair or inefficient, and he advocated that it should be handed over to a non-political board. The reception of the Civil Service Board is hardly calculated to encourage. Ministers in pursuing this theory, but a • basis of reform is exceedingly hard to find. A good • and safe objective theoretically would be local responsibility: the need for raising a certain proportion of money locally. in order to secure a Government grant, but practically it often happens that the districts which most need attention and nursing are districts where the population is sparse, and the people are struggling and poor, districts in which pioneering work is being done, and yet districts which ultimately will re,pay for opening. Mr Pearce during ■the debate expressed a " hope that some better system of distributing SKft^it $a&U .Jk^v Row in vogue wpuld^ soon Ah& eV6keCt. A conference country r^prsieiiia'tives which met. during the year had fee&tiritelided a new System. The conference proposed that all county councils should! feeeive a subsidy of 5s in the £ on ratesAt present some districts got subsidies of 10s in the £, and others got 5s in the £ up to £2500 of rates, and nothing beyond that amount. It was proposed by the conference that the 5s subsidy should be universal. As to grants in aid, the conference recommended tiie|^rea^ion of s^n indej pendent board" to control their distrii bution. It was proposed that in the first instance the board should classify the counties into those which had roads to make and tnose which had only maintenance of roads to provide forj Only the backblocks districts which had roads to make would receive grants in) aid. The other counties would get only 5s subsidy. It was further pro-; posed that the board should allocate! the amount available for grants in aid', amongst the^ different districts and; roads. This would be a much better.scheme than the present haphazard^ one.'' There seems to be some: pro-: mise.in.this suggestion, and Mr Pearce has had so much experience in local government work that it is satisfactory to find that he, thinks it might be made workable. On the general question of expenditure we are glad to findithat both the.local members—Mr Pearce and Mr Wilkinson—spoke in favor of a moz*e close scrutiny of expenditure on public buildings, with the : view of money being .freed for the ! more directly practical work of roads ! and . bridges, though to be sure Mr ] Pearce was heckled -a bit by members ; who, discovered a rather heavy vote \ for the erection of a post office at ! Patea. Ministers defended themselves by pointing out that while they were ■"apparently responsible for a large ap-

propriation for public buildings, in the main they -were only carrying out engagements to which they had been com- j mitted by their predecessors. Mr Massey freely admitted that too great a proportion of the; available funds is going in buildings. r We shall see before the end of the Parliament whether there is any improvement; but. certainly no one can travel without being impressed with the conviction that, money has. been lavished, not to say wasted, on buildings for a good many years past. With dearer money, some effort must be made to keep expenditure of this class within more reasonable bounds. ' i