ARTERIAL HIGHWAYS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23204, 31 May 1937, Page 6

ARTERIAL HIGHWAYS

NOT A COUNTY LIABILITY SECONDARY ROADS SUFFER REVIEW PROMISED " SOME DAY " (Per United Prfss Association) GISBORNE. May 30 A denunciation of the old scheme of things by which the construction and maintenance of main highways was a liability on county councils was made by the Minister of Public Works (Mr R. Semple) at Gisborne on Saturday, when speaking to a deputation representative of the ratepayers of the Cook County Council.

"It was a colossal blunder ever to have asked the counties of this country to pay money towards main highways,' he declared To that policy the Minister attributed the fact that many counties throughout the Dominion were unable to find money for secondary and back-block roads. He said that the Government had taken over 2000 miles of highways, last year, and as a result had saved the counties £200,000. "The counties should never nave been called upon to pay money for highways," Mr Semple continued. "Main arterial highways are not a county liability any more than the railways are. The counties should never have been asked to pay. If that had not been done the counties would have money to spend on county roads. To-day there are hundreds of farmers stuck in the mud.

" We are trying to patch up the mistakes of the past," the Minister said. "It was a political blunder of the greatest magnitude lam not going to suggest that a review of these liabilities will not take place. They will be reviewed some day. Unless we have some other system of construction and maintenance of roads those farmers who have been stuck in the mud for vears will stay in the mud To leave the farmer there not only means hamstringing him, but prevents him from taking the total possible production from his property, and that automatically affects the nation as a whole. As soon as I got an opportunity I gave the maximum relief possible at the time. "The plight the counties are in to-day was brought about by their being saddled with a burden- they should never have been asked to carry," the Minister concluded.