HIGHWAY SUBSIDIES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 243, 12 September 1929, Page 7

HIGHWAY SUBSIDIES.

PROTEST SUPPORTED. (Special to “Standard.”) FEILDING, Sept. 12. The reported proposal of the Government to withhold the statutory grant to the Main Highways Board was protested against at yesterday’s meeting of the Oroua County Council when a letter was received from the Canterbury Progress League placing before the council the protests it had forwarded to the Government in regard to the matter. The chairman (Cr Campbell) thought that the council could do nothing else but support the Progress Leaghe. The £200,000 grant had been set aside for a specific purpose—to spend on the highways—and the speaker was at a loss to account for the attitude of the Government in talking of withholding the money. As matters stood, however, the action of the Government did not affect the Oroua County, but with the neighbouring counties of Manawatu and Horowbenua, where comprehensive reading schemes had been put in train, the position was serious. Work that was in a half finished state had had to be left by the action of the Government in curtailing the subsidies, and the astonishing part of .the whole matter was that these local bodies had been given authority to go ahead with the work, and now the proceedings were held up. , Cr McElroy thought that the local bodies should protest very emphatically on the point and particularly in view of the statement by the Minister of Public Works that more money than ever was to be spent this year on the main highways. Cr Shannon pointed out that the Minister had stated that the department intended to spend about £2,000,000 on the highways and toabsorb 5000 unemployed in the work, but the withholding of the subsidies to the neighbouring county did not bear that out. , it was finally decided, on the motion of the chairman, to support the league and to forward a copy of the protest to the member for the district.