COUNTRY ROADS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15096, 12 September 1912, Page 6

COUNTRY ROADS.

A CORRESPONDENT calls attention,: in this vmorning's Herald, to the depressing effect upon settlement and progress 'of. the wretched roads.to be. found even in the vicinity of Auckland. The complaint is thoroughly justifiable. In every direc-' tion and in every district, with veryfew exceptions, the roads of the province are in a most disgraceful condition, nor can it be said that they generally show the best results even for the insufficient sums expended upon them. The individual settler cannot avoid knowing the "extravagant cost of bad roads—cost in horseflesh, Cost in damage to vehicles, cost in lost time, cost in a dozen ways— the community appears to think that money spent and engineering skill employed upon country road making is money unprofitably invested, if not wasted. This is a grave mistake. There is no public investment so profitable as money skilfully expended upon road making, for there is nothing which more . encourages the close settlement and increased productivity of land. Railways are invaluable when taken in connection with a subsidiary system of roads, but railways lose a great part of their value when settlers have to reach stations through morasses. Most districts need a competent survey of their reading requirements; when '«jr.eir roads are decided upon it is , essential that they should be laid out. by engineers who -not only ' know their business but have- time to .do good work. The local authorities, as a rule, are unable to deal effectively with the reading • problem. The i Government should provide main roads, under a carefully considered public : works policy, leaving the local bodies, to attend to branch' roads which might then bo within their " power. Auckland province cannot be properly developed as long as roads remain in their existing state and until roading expenditure is" applied with some scientific perception of the end in view. •'