The Marlborough Express. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1907. PUBLIC WORKS EXPENDITURE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLI, Issue 176, 27 July 1907, Page 4

The Marlborough Express. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1907. PUBLIC WORKS EXPENDITURE.

We in this district may take reasonable comfort from a sentence or two in the spirited commentary of the Premier upon a recommendation ' made by the Petitions Committee in the House last night. The occasion was the request for a large sum of money to construct a bridge over the Waitemata at Riverhead, but the remarks have a much wider application. The Committee recommended that such petitions for works should be sent to the Government direct, whereupon the Leader of the Opposition advocated setting up a Public Works Committee, to which all applications for the expenditure of public works money should be referred. It was to this that the Premier took exception, and his tone was, and quite justifiably, someAvhat warm. He said, "No matter what the Committee said or recommended, the Government had to allocate the amount available for public works; to the best advantage, and, guided ,by its officers, went to work in the process' of selection irrespective of anything else. The Government would not be forced • into taking in hand any particular work because a petition was sent and favourably reported on by the Committee. The responsibility was on the Government, and the Government accepted it. The proper quarter to which to address a I petition was the Minister for Public Works." This is unquestionably the sound, constitutional view of the position. Mr Massey, and his predecessor in the office of Leader of the Opposition, Capt. Russell, have exhibited remarkable -persistency in endeavouring i to limit the powers—and especially the 1 spending powers—of the Executive, by | means which they themselves would j ,we are quite sure, be extremely loathr to see in operation against a Government of which they were members;. , Such means are -wholly out of touch with the democratic tendency of the times, which is to insist upon all functions of Government being exorcised by persons directly responsible to the people.

But the point to which we desire specially to direct .attention is dealt with ( in another part of the Premier's speech. Sir Joseph Ward strongly deprecated the system ■of making wholesale demands for public works, which members must know, would involve an expenditure of three or four millions. And then he intimated, in plain language, that the Government has no intention of undertaking any new railway schemes. There are already, he said, " Seventeen or eighteen lines now in hand, and to open up new lines meant allocating public works money in driblets, to convey the impression that new railways were being constructed in particular districts." We did not think there were, and ,we are sorry to hear that there are, so many lines under construction; but as three or four of the more important of the number are rapidly approaching the stage at which it has been decided to pause, it looks as if our chance for a turn of vigorous progress were improving. The objection to spending money in driblets might have applied any time these many years past to many of the lines under construction, and it is therefore of much v interest to us to learn that the system is not to be perpetuated. If no nevr lines are taken on, the dribbling process will speedily come to an end, because, with the completion of the North Island Trunk and the letting of the Arthur's Pass tunnel, a certain amount of energy will be freed for the benefit of our Trunk Line, which has afforded heretofore the best exemplification of the evils of " dribbling."