THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, MAY 1, 1920. A LESSON OP THE STRIKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17459, 1 May 1920, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, MAY 1, 1920. A LESSON OP THE STRIKE.

The railway strike will prove to be not an unmixed evil if it impresses upon the Government the vital importance of maintaining good roads as an alternative means of transport. As a people we have shamefully neglected our roads. The facilities for sea transport, the multiplicity of good harbours, and the long coastline encouraged this tendency in the first instance. Settlement hugged the shore, and as it penetrated into the interior it depended upon railways. Wo have never been forced to develop our inland communications as continental peoples have; wo havo never learned to value the road as our forefathers valued it before the ago of the locomotive. It is clear that this contempt of the road cannot be perpetuated much longer. Our civilisation is growing too complex, and the inland population too numerous to depend so implicitly on coastal services and narrow-gauge railways. We must have roads, good roads, and plenty of roads, roads that arc passable in all weathers, and roads that will servo motor transport as the railways servo steam transport.

Unfortunately, the task which is here opened up is too enormous to adroit of any hasty improvisation. It can only be accomplished by years of patient labour and at a very great cost, because in roadmaking we have achieved nothing more than a rudimentary beginning. As far as roads aro concerned the largest e : ty of the Dominion suffers virtual isolation during the winter, and the other centres of population in tho North Island aro hardly better circumstanced. Whether the traveller goes north or south from Auckland he soon encounters difficulties in the best of weather.During or after rain he meets obstacles which, to commercial transport, arc practically unsurmountable. Proceeding north, he realises why the North Auckland peninsula has earned notoriety, even in a country which hardly knows good roads. Travel is fairly easy as far as Henderson, but by whichever route the explorer seeks to penetrate the high country to the north he meets absurdly steep grades and bad surfaces. The metal is patchy to Helensvillc, and beyond that point the traveller quickly enters the no-man's-land where roads are practically unknown. Communications with the south arc even more deplorably inadequate, not because they are actually worse— were virtually impossible — but because of the greater volume of traffic they should carry. The Razorbacks, the Itangiriri Hills, the treacherous blanket of dust or mud—according to tho weather— fills the potholes doing duty as a road between Ohinewai and Huntly—these are the worrying stages of a road which in winter is impracticable for commercial traffic, and at any time of year is a caricature of a main thoroughfare. It is bad enough that the metal should end at Mercer; it : is wholly inexcusable that the road over tho Razorbacks should still take primitive curves over the highest ridges as it was first formed instead of seeking the easier grades which engineers could readily find. At Huntly the road begins to improve, but until bad patches farther south are put in repair and until the mere track between Mercer and Huntly gives place to a metalled way, Auckland will continue to depend solely upon the railway to save her from isolation.

A few weeks ago the Prime Minister admitted that good arterial roads were essential. About the same time the Minister for Public Works stated that his Department was now preparing a report on the subject of main road maintenance, with a view to legislation. The people of New Zealand, uncomfortably conscious at this crisis of the utter chaos of their road system, will hope that these members of the Government intend to come to grips with this phase of the transport problem. The politicians of New Zealand have talked about good communications since the dawn of responsible government. Unfortunately, fair words metal no roads, and it is fully time political platitudes gave way to engineering enterprise. Before this can take place, however, it is necessary that the administrative system for the good roads era should be defined. This is the crux of the whole matter. The engineering difficulties of New Zealand roading are not exceptional, but there is an utter lack of co-ordination among the local authorities and too great a subdivision of responsibility, When Parliament provides workable machinery for the maintenance and control of roads whether it be the Victorian or other system the country may expect to see a return for its expenditure on these vital forms of communication.