MAIN HIGHWAYS SYSTEM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19386, 22 July 1926, Page 8

MAIN HIGHWAYS SYSTEM.

' Discussion at the Counties Con* ference yesterday showed that these bodies are not satisfied with the manner in which the Highways Board assists them in dealing,, with the highways passing through their territory. Details of their dissatisfaction, and of the manner in which they think the position could be improved, are less significant than the revelation, plainer than ever before, that the Main Highways Act, in its present shape, is producing results only to be expected. The measure first drafted, but never put on the Statute Book, contained a scheme under which main highways would really have been national roads, formed, maintained and administered as such without the counties being charged with either the work or the finance. In its place there was put the present measure, by which highways supposed to be national transport routes, are chopped and parcelled among the counties in such a manner tkzt.. however good the in-

tentions and well-inspired the efforts, there cannot be continuous policy applied to them. One county may have much main highway and little effective ratable area. Another may be in exactly the reverse position. Whatever the individual situation, all of them agree in asserting that their own roads are subject to more national than local use, and therefore entitled to special financial consideration from the Highways Board. They want to have as much as possible from the central fund which the board administers. They are not to be blamed; the fault lies with the system contained in the present Act. Ever since it oame into force, the conclusion .has been pointed more and more plainly that abandonment of the original scheme was a regrettable error. Gradually it has seemed that a return to the first proposals would become inevitable; and, the more definitely because unconsciously, that suggestion lay beneath practically the whole of yesterday's debate at the Counties Conference.