HIGHER PETROL TAX.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20640, 12 August 1930, Page 11

HIGHER PETROL TAX.

PROPOSED ALLOCATION.

OBJECTIONS FROM MOTORISTS

POSITION IN COUNTIES. [BY TELEGRAPH.—OWN' CORRESPONDENT.] WELLINGTON. Monday. Commenting on the proposal of the Government to raid the Highways Funds and to impose taxation on motorists to make up the deficiency .in other directions, Mr. A. E. Ansell. M.P., president of the South Island Motor Union, stated in Wellington to-day that he had received hundreds of telegrams from all parts of the Dominion urging him to make every endeavour to combat an increase in the petrol tax to be used in the manner suggested by the Government. Mr. Ansell said that iq the future there might be very serious consequences if the present suggestions were allowed to become law. He said if the Government was successful in its attempt to charge interest on the free grants that had been made in the past from the Consolidated Fund to the Main Highways Fund—such grants being part of the original agreement when motor taxation was approved by road users—then the charging of interest on these amounts presupposed that there was a debt due by the highways fund to the Consolidated Fund of the amount upon which interest was charged. If this was so, the Government proposes to create a debt of £1,200,000. It would, of course, bo a debt that would increase year by year and would gradually cripple the operations of tne Highways Board to the detriment of motor traffic and particularly to the detriment of back-country roads. Mr. Ansell added that the present proposals meant the destruction of the intentions of the Highways Act and denied counties the right to increased subsidies, because of increased motor traffic. "This particularly concerns county ratepayers, who, under the proposals, cannot hope for any reduction in locaj rales, and is very severe to local bodies adjacent to large centres," he said. "Motorists, both city and rural, have expressed to me their willingness to co-operate in any well-thought-out and equitable plan for progress in regard to the roading problem. The present suggestion leads nowhere."

Mr. G. W. Hutchison, secretary of the Auckland Automobile Association, stated that already motorists were beginning to feel the pinch and a number of letters had been received, particularly from country members, expressing their regret that they would be forced to give up motoring as the extra cost of petrol would impose an additional expense which their financial position would not warrant.