Manawatu Evening Standard. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 4, 1929. HIGHWAYS FINANCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 236, 4 September 1929, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 4, 1929. HIGHWAYS FINANCE.

The protests made against tlie withdrawal of the subsidies that were, under the Maiu High ways Act, 1922, to be annually credited to the Highways Board from the Consolidated and Public Works Funds —,£35,000 in the case of the former and £200,000 in that of the latter —have not proved altogether ineffective. The Prime Minister now states that it was a mistake to suppose the Government had any intention of depriving the board of the £200,000 which is the Public Works contribution to the board’s construction fund. But Sir Joseph Ward qualifies the Budget reference to the matter by claiming that the highways fund, being now a revenue account, should pay interest on the loan moneys it receives from the Public Works Fund. But what possible justification is there for charging that interest on moneys voted by Parliament to the board for the construction of highways? Year by year, since the Public Works Fund was inaugurated, moneys have been applied by the State for roading purposes, without any thought of interest being charged in respect of the sums voted, and it has been generally recognised that the expenditure so incurred was of a national character. Now, because the Government has been relieved to a very large extent of the expenditure involved, and the construction and maintenance of the main highways is being undertaken by the Highways Board, the amazing discovery has been made that the special revenue derived from the taxation of motorists constitutes, with the amounts contributed by the local bodies, a “revenue account,” and that, consequently, the State lias a right to charge interest on its share of the money expended from loan account. The agreement come to was a tripartite one. The motorists were to contribute to the funds of the Highways Board, through the petrol and tyre taxes; the local bodies were to contribute their share of the expenditure (and the promise was that they would be relieved to a considerable extent of the burden of maintenance and construction), and the Government was to credit the Highways Board’s maintenance, and construction funds with] the amounts stated in the 1922 Act. There was not even a sug-1 gestion that interest should be | charged on moneys _ voted to the | board for construction purposes, 1 nor that the statutory provision made for the payments to the board was open to review, or was capable of being set aside at the

caprice of a Minister of the Crown. Parliament could, of course, repeal or amend the Act to permit of the withdrawal of the subsidies, and, in that case, the Government, fortified by Parliamentary authority, would be well within its rights in undoing the work of a previous Parliament and Government. But, because in the case of the Highways Board, the grants to be made from the Consolidated and Public Works Fund have to be voted annually, it is, or has been claimed that the Government may abstain, or refuse to place the sums in question on the estimates. Unless it does' so, the House cannot of course vote the moneys stipulated by the 1922 measure, the only action open to it being to move the reduction of the vote in any particular class, to signify its disapproval of the Government’s action. It is mere quibbling to say that the Government is under no obligation to hand over the moneys to the Main Highways Board that are required of it by statute because they have to be voted annually. And it is decidedly over the odds for the Government to not only withhold the ' £35,000 lor road maintenance, but also to charge interest on the £200,000, thus actually taxing, instead of subsidising as it should, the work of the Highways Board.