HIGHWAYS AND PETROL TAX

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21363, 17 June 1931, Page 8

HIGHWAYS AND PETROL TAX

ro THE EDITOR Sib, —It seems to me that the money raised by the petrol tax is very unjustly distributed. Nearly all the petrol tax money is spent on the highways. At least one-half of it should be spent on the back country roads. The towns have had a very good innings since the tax ivas first imposed. The highways have been mostly built at the expense of the railways to suit the towns. The car owners in the towns demand roads where their cars never get any mud, and their cars can be run at a very low cost per mile, using little benzine. The people in the back country have often to plough through six inches of slush and mud with their cars for miles, even in low gear with chains on, sometimes barely knowing whether they are advancing or not. They use at least 10 times as much benzine per mile as those on tar-sealed highways do. At least 50 per cent, of the town dwellers are only out for pleasure, whereas the farmers in the backblocks have neither the time nor the money to travel for pleasure on roads where they never know when or where they will get bogged altogether. Some allowance should be made to people feeding the railways, both in the price of benzine and in the car and lorry tax, in contrast with those who are competing with the railways. Recently a city dweller was travelling along one of the roads which we have to use to reach our nearest railway station. A heavy shower came on, and the traveller got into trouble with his car, which turned right across the road and blocked it. Other motorists came along and had to stop. One of them advised the city resident to bring chains for his car next time he came that way He replied: “As far as I am concerned fihere will be no next time for me on these roads.”

Candidates for Parliament are always advocating the settlement of the people on the land. What is the use of trying to get people to take up land unless the country gives them roads fit to travel on between their homes and the railways? We cannot all live close to a highway, nor can we breed sheep in Princess street. Far too much money is spent on the highways. The power graders are always working up and down them while the backblock settlers never see or get any benefit from the graders, though part of their rates were used to buy them and are spent in keeping them working. I know a ratepayer wno was trying to- persuade a councillor to do something to improve his road. The councillor replied that lie lived too near the boundary of the county to get anything done, although the road is a main road that passes through more than one county.—l am, etc., June 15. Backblock Farmer.