THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1932. WORKS AND THEIR COST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21109, 17 February 1932, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1932. WORKS AND THEIR COST.

It is not long since there was offered to Parliament, and adopted by it, a report which marked a turning point in public works policy. Six lines or sections of railway under construction were recommended for discontinuance, and the advice of the Railways Board was accepted by the Legislature. Following that action, and having regard to the terms of the report, few 'would be bold enough to predict a resumption of railway construction on anything like the scale witnessed for several past decades. For many years the building of railways has been the most important and most extensive activity of the Public Works Department. It is true that since the war hydro-electric power development has loomed large, but that programme has, from the outset, been regarded as definitely terminable, not subject to extension from year to year as railway construction has for so long been. One consequence of the new outlook is that the very size and complexity of this department will have to be reviewed in the light of the necessarily more circumscribed activities of the future. But another phase of this, the most extensive agency for capital expenditure by the State, demands scrutiny. It is commonly suggested that the depressed state of the railways, exemplified by the acute struggle to return interest on capital, is wholly due to road competition following the development of motor traction. This is one factor, but closer examination of the data available points conclusively to its being far from the whole explanation of the failure by the railways to pay interest. Figures can be found indicating that, road competition or no road competition, newlyconstructed lines would never have returned interest on capital because of enormously inflated construction costs. Valuable light on the growth of costs can be found in the report of the Railways Board to which reference has already been made. Figures quoted there show that in a representative list of what may be called pre-war lines and sections, the most expensive to construct was the North Island Main Trunk between Marton and Te A.wamutu. As the report says of this stretch of railway: "The country through which this section passes is difficult . . . and the cost per -mile when the line was constructed was considered to be heavy." That cost per mile was £13,700. Of the six lines the board recommended for cessation, the cheapest was estimated to cost £36,276 per mile and the dearest £51,099. In each instance the country is difficult, but is it so much worse than that which includes the Raurimu spiral and necessitated the Makatote viaduct, as to explain the difference between £13,700 and £36,276 per mile 1 ? Wages now are, of course, higher than in 1909, when the Main Trunk was completed, but labour-saving appliances like steam shovels have, or should have, reduced the bulk of manual labour needed iri construction work. Vet costs have soared to the heights indicated, heights which would make it necessary for the lines to earn as much per mile as the best paying railways in the most densely populated countries in the world before they would return bare interest on capital. There is no hope of any line in New Zealand doing this, even if motor competition diverted neither a passenger nor an ounce of goods to the road. Hence the cost of construction has had far more to do with the necessity for stopping suqn dangerously unprofitable ventures than the rivalry of the road has. Since railway building has perforce come to a virtual end, in many parts of the country roads have grown more important. This brings a need for vigilance to prevent the same heaping up of costs on road construction as has caused railway programmes to be jettisoned. The Public Works Department is deeply concerned in roading, both because of the work it does itself and because of the supervision it exercises over county roading where subsidies are paid on the cost of the work. This is something quite apart from the activities ofthe Main Highways Board. Complaints are heard occasionally from local bodies concerning the demands made by the department for standards in road work considered far beyond the necessities of the district and far more costly than county finances can bear. This is certainly a direction in which vigilance must be exercised. In various places comments can Ibe heard on unnecessarily elaborate improvements made to roads which, if previously below the standard demanded by modern traffic, have since been brought to a condition far higher than ordinary requirements warranted. To impose what may be termed "railway standards" on roads would mean an outpouring of money far beyond what the country could reasonably bear, and far beyond what it would be disposed to tolerate. Present circumstances require the exercise of rigid control over all costs, and the costs of improving communications must stand high in the list of those demanding scrutiny. It is apparent from the figures quoted by the Railways Board that for many years past work has been done by a State department that was so costly as to be far beyond the means of the country. There has been a revelation, and the process has stopped because sheer necessity has forced the step. The situation cannot be allowed to drift until a similar state of affairs develops over roads and other capital works. Not only must the size of this spending department be reduced in accordance with the diminution of its activities, but its methods and the results it achieves in proportion to outlay must be closely scrutinised. The cost of other works cannot be allowed to go the course followed by the cost of railway construction, a course that ended in compulsory stoppage.;

THE GERMAN PRESIDENCY. In connection with Marshal von Hindenburg's decision to stand again for the presidency there are indications of a further bid for power by the Nazis, as the National Socialist Party led by Herr Hitler is generally known. This party is determined on nominating its leader in opposition to Hindenburg, and he has agreed to be a candidate. Thus a new turn is given to political affairs in Germany. A month ago there appeared to be a likelihood of fairly settled political conditions. The expectation that the Nazis would run a candidate for the presidency in opposition to Hindenburg— Dr. Hugenburg had been suggested, with the expectation that Hitler would win the chancellorship—was then lessened by the announcement that they had decided to support a movement to extend Hindenburg's term. They were vehement in protest against extension by a vote in the Reichstag, which they denounced as an unwarrantable coup d'etat, but were willing to give support to Hindenburg provided the election were held as usual. This was a tactical move, for it won credit for the Nazis as a law-abiding party, a credit of which they have been perpetually in need ; however, there is a possibility that they were shrewdly bent on getting Hindenburg out of the offered shelter of a Reichstag resolution into the open field of an election, in order to match their strength there against the present Government. At all events, their promise to support Hindenburg has been torn up, if Hitler is to be nominated against him, and the political outlook in Germany is consequently stormy. The displacement of Hindenburg by Hitler would be a revolutionary change, and it would be particularly disastrous in foreign affairs, as the Nazis are openly determined to defy the terms of the Versailles Treaty, to compel Germany's withdrawal from the League of Nations, and to initiate a regime of militant nationalism.