THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1927. ROADS, NORTH AND SOUTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19806, 29 November 1927, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1927. ROADS, NORTH AND SOUTH.

When a national roading policy was first discussed in this country there were people optimistic enough to hope that something deserving of the name would be fashioned and given effect. Some, indeed, had enough imagination to conceive of a great national highway from the North Cape to the Bluff —with the unavoidable interruption of Cook Strait, of course, but otherwise continuous. That image has much to commend it, even if such a great artery was not necessarily a definite part, as such, of the original scheme. It could serve usefully as the symbol of national effort directed to the accomplishment of what, ought to be a national task, the construction and maintenance of main arterial highways as complete entities, regardless of provincial boundaries, county boundaries, parish boundaries —or parish pumps. The Main Highways Act, as it stands to-day, has brought a rude awakening from that dream. If it were not enough, there have been many signs that Cook Strait would have been much more than a physical barrier to national unity in roading. Otago, or much of Otago, has been co-operating in an indignation meeting held at Dunedin. The purpose was to indict the Government, the Minister of Public Works, and anybody else who could be held blameworthy, because it has not been agreed to allocate the proceeds of the petrol tax between the North Island and the South, as the tyre tax is allocated "generally so that the amount apportioned to any island shall be fixed by reference to the number of motor vehicles in use in that island." The South Island fought, long and hard to have that provision incorporated in the Main Highways Act. It now seems determined to fight on until it wins another victory over the proceeds of the petrol tax. From the tone of the Dunedin meeting it is evident that a very pretty quarrel over this division of motor tax proceeds could be worked up, but for one thing. The North Island has consistently and obstinately refused to enter the argument. Yet it might well be even more insistent on that very point than the South, for two reasons. In the first place, far more than half of New Zea land's motor vehicles are to be found in the North Island, and, consequently had the rigid allocation of the tyre tax proceeds not been insisted upon as it was, the South Island might very easily have had more than its pro rata share without anything being said about it. Again, Governments—all Governments—are prone to give most to those who clamour most, and the South Island has had far more practice in clamouring for what it wants than has the North. However, the protection the North Island needs has been provided at the instance of the South, and North Island contributors to the tyre tax fund can sleep com fortably at night without fear that, the money they have had to find will be used on roads that will help to make the Otago Central Railway return an even greater loss than it does at present, capital charges being counted. There is, therefore, no reason for the North to object while Otago is again fighting the battle for the protection of North Island funds derived through the petrol tax, though there is every justification for a mild protest at the very obvious suggestion of a dark plot to spend South Island money on North Island roads. For instance, one speaker at the Dunedin meeting said "the farmers of the North Island needed new roads, and were not prepared to pay for them." It. is not a very accurate summing up of the position, but, even if it were, the farmers of the North Island have not yet asked the South Island to pay for their roads. Most North Island farmers are too busy to waste their time in such a futile effort. They should not be blamed for what they have not done. The danger that this demand for strict, geographical division of motor taxation may prove double-edged was suggested to the Dunedin meeting in two telegrams from the Hon. Downie Stewart, to whom an appeal for assistance had been made. He said that there were many problems that would become much more difficult if the South Island were to be treated as being politically as well as geographically separated from the North A passing reference to the fact that the South Island railways earned only 2} per cent., as against 6 per cent, in the North Island, and that Parliament had agreed to substantial duties on wheat and flour for the exclusive benefit of South Island farmers, showed what the Minister had in his mind. His argument was brushed aside as having nothing to do with special motor .taxation. No more it has in one way, but it has a very important bearing if Otago succeeds in establishing as a fixed principle that money taken from the public in one island should not He applied to the needs of another. That is the direction in which the Dunedin meeting was headed, and Mr. Downie Stewart saw the dangers in front much more clearly than anybody present at it seemed to do. llr also presented figures showing that the Main Highways Board was subsidising maintenance and construction at a higher rate in the South Island than in the North. The suggestion was treated with scorn, but it is proved correct by the board's last report and statement of accounts—and nobody in the North

Island has yet made a grievance of it. The meeting would have none of Mr. Downie Stewart's arguments. It passed a couple of strong resolutions and appointed a deputation to take them to Wellington. What the result will be. whether the Government will yield to clamour and further complicate the intricate business of dividing up the return from the petrol tax, only time can show. Meantime, the dream of a national roading policy, with the whole country united in furtherance of it, is more of a dream than ever.