HIGHWAYS AND UNEMPLOYMENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21289, 16 September 1932, Page 10

HIGHWAYS AND UNEMPLOYMENT

According to Mr. M. H. Wynyard, motorists' representative on the Main Highways Board, the highways of the Dominion are deteriorating at the rate of £200,000 a year. Some degree of deterioration may be inevitable in these times, but it, seems most anomalous that there should be neglect of maintenance to such an extent when the Unemployment Board is compelled to sanction so much work of little public value under its No. 5 scheme. The maintenance and reconstruction of highways ought to offer wide scope for relief. Temporary repairs to the PapakuraBombay section of the Great South Road is an urgent job at Auckland's door, but although the Main Highways Board is prepared to subsidise the work in the proportion of three to one, a squabble with the Franklin County Council as to whether the labour should be supplied locally or recruited among single men who would live in camps is being allowed to delay arrangements. Elsewhere there are works of similar urgency from the point of view of the Main Highways Board, but the difficulties are. more complex. The heart of the problem often is the inability of any authority to find the cost of material. There can be little doubt that with material and plant available much more employment on the highways could be found for relief workers. Two factors constitute the main handicap. The first is the diversion

of a sum up to £500,000 for the year from the Main Highways Fund to the Consolidated ' Fund, and a further amount of £250,000 applied in granting relief to the extent of per cent to rural ratepayers. The Main Highways Board is thus deprived of three-quarters of a million with which it could have carried out a great deal of maintenance and reconstruction, and very much more if wages had been subsidised by the Unemployment Board. The second factor is that the financial position of many of the counties compels them to economise even on works of outstanding importance. In the emergency the bolstering up of the Budget with half a million from highways taxation may have been justified, but the immediate consequence has been road deterioration and an accentuation of unemployment. The middle course that'might be taken through the problem would bo for the Government to leave the Main Highways Board sufficient money to provide a reasonable amount of material and for the Unemployment Board to arrange for the labour.