MAIN HIGHWAYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3726, 11 August 1925, Page 58

MAIN HIGHWAYS.

COUNTY COUNCILS DISSATISFIED. TWO BOARDS WANTED. CHRISTCHURCH, August 4. County councils of the South Island, to judge by those in Canterbury, are not satisfied with the operations of the Main Highways Act, so to-day representatives of the councils in Highway Groups 13, 14, and 15 were called together in conference by the Canterbury Progress League to talk tne questions over, There were 65 delegates present, and Mr F. W. Furkert (chairman of rhe Main Highways Board), Mr F. Langbein (district engineer and chairman of the Highway Groups), and Mr J. D. Bruce (counties representative on the Main Highways Board! were also present. Mr W. fC. Mac Alpine said that the main dissalaction was because there was only one loud. The councils were bound down, and there was not enough elasticity. The South Island was unanimous for a board for each island. There was no complaint with anything olke but the Act. It was too big a job for one board to administer the Act in both islands. In Canterbury the roads were made without Government assistance, but a new class of traffic had come along that councils could not cope with. The councils were not prepared to go on increasing the rates just for one section of the motoring public. Mr Furkert said that if the delegates had waited for the report of the conference to be disseminated the money spent in bringing the delegates together would not have been wasted.

Members: We paid our own expenses. Mr Furkert: I am not concerned with who paid them. The report, I think, would show you that a lot of your troubles would be eliminated.

The conference decided to recommend the Government to alter the maintenance subsidy from £1 far £2 to £ for £, not because it was thought the best thing, but because of the state of the finances. Not one of the South Island representatives at the conference had suggested a board for the South Island. 'Hie Railway Board controlled both islands. Motions were carried :n favour of subsidies for reconstruction and maintenance being not lesthan 50 per cent., and that icvenue received under the Act be apportioned between two islands in proportion to the number motor vehicles m use in each island.

Mr Bruce said that the board had passed a resolution that all money raised m the South Island must be spent in that island. He did not want to press the South Island to borrow at the rate of the North Island, for personally ho thought that in the North Island this was being overdone. There were at present 12 amendments to the Act before the House, the nature of which he could not divulge to the conference, but he could inform it that there was little doubt that a £ for £ subsidy for maintenance purposes would be soon forthcoming.