Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 1929 HIGHWAYS BOARD FINANCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 227, 24 August 1929, Page 8

Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 1929 HIGHWAYS BOARD FINANCE.

The Government will be setting a very bad example to its Socialistic following, if it persists in its policy of repudiating, without Parliamentary sanction, the actions of its predecessors in office. It is, as Mr K. S. Williams, the ex-Minister of Public Works, pointed out the other day, under obligation, by Act of Parliament, to continue the grants made from the Public Works Fund and the Consolidated Fund towards the work of the Main Highways Board, the former amounting to £200,000 per annum and. the latter to £35,000 annually. It has been reported that it is the Prime Minister’s intention to withdraw both subsidies. Attention was called to this matter at a meeting of the Manukau County Council on Tuesday, when a strong protest was entered against the Government’s proposed line of action which, it was pointed out, was a serious one for local bodies. When the Highways Board was set up under the authority of the Main Highways Act, 1922, it was expressly provided under section 14 of the Act that “All moneys appropriated by Parliament out of the Consolidated Fund for the purpose of main highways, being not less in any year than the sum of thirty-five thousand pounds,” should be credited to the Revenue Fund of the Highways Board. Section 16 of the same Act similarly provides (clause (b) ) that “All moneys appropriated by Parliament out of the Public Works Fund for the purposes of main highways, being not less in any ono year than the sum of two hundred thousand pounds” shall be credited to the board’s construction fund. The first payments to the board’s credit in both cases were to be made in and for the year commencing on the first day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-four. Payments were so made and have been continued up to the present financial year. If, as is suggested, Sir Joseph Ward intends discontinuing these payments, he is bound to first move in the direction of obtaining Parliamentary authority to repeal, or ' amend, the sections quoted, so that he may either discontinue or Teduce the amounts payable by the State to the Highways Board. The mere fact—if it is a fact which is disputed—that the Highways Board has a good balance at its disposal does not relieve the Government of its obligation to contribute to the board’s revenue and construction funds the sums of £35,000 and

£200,000, provided for by the 1922 Act as the 'minimum of its annual subsidies to the board. Nor would the failure of the Government to place those sums on the estimates relieve its members of that obligation, as that failure would practically amount to repudiation. The Auckland protest voiced by the Manukau County Council is timely, and backs' up the earlier protests made by Mr Ansell, M.P., on behalf of the Otago Automobile Association, and 'by other motorists who, as big contributors to the revenues of the Highways Board through the petrol and tyre taxes, etc., have accepted the special taxation levied upon them, on the strength of the Government' subsidies. The local bodies are also affected by the Prime Minister’s proposal to withdraw the subsidies, for it is inevitable that they will have to make bigger demands upon the ratepayers for their contributions towards the funds of the Highways Board, probably to the extent of the sums withheld by the Government, and they should not be slow in entering their, protests also against the proposed Government action.