PUBLIC WORKS BILL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21225, 4 July 1932, Page 10

PUBLIC WORKS BILL.

FIGURES FOR 58 YEARS.

TOTAL OVER £163.000,000

Certain particulars regarding public ! works expenditure given four years ago by Mr. C. J. McKenzie,, Assistant-Engi-i neer-in-Chief of the Public Works Department, can to-day be recalled only with astonishment, says the Dominion, Wellington. Mr. McKenzie, in his presiden- ! tial address to the annual conference in | Wellington of the New Zealand Society of I Civil Engineers in February, 192?}*, is reported as having stated: "The principal public works carried out in the Dominion (since 1870) present, when sumnkrised, quite a formidable list. By adding Government and local body expenditure, some of which is naturally a rough estimate, the total of over £163,000,000 is arrived at, as follows: t Railways' .... .. .. £55,000.000 Roads (aSßumed) 40,000,000 Tramways 5,300,000 Harbours and lights .. .. 16,000,000 Electrical undertakings .. .. 13,000,000 Drainage, sewerage and water 1 supply .. 8,500,000 Public buildings .« .. .. 12,100.000 Telegraphs .. .. .. .. 8,700,000 £163,600,000 • The expenditure up to 1928 had thus been at the rate of nearly three millions a year for 68 years. This expenditure was nearly two-thirds of the gross national debt at of March, 19538—namely, £251,396,252.