Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, MONDAY, JAN. 7, 1935. ROAD BUILDING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18597, 7 January 1935, Page 6

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, MONDAY, JAN. 7, 1935. ROAD BUILDING

,i'f nations would build roads instead of Viall h-ships, someone has said, tin peace of the world would he speedily accomplished. Bo that as it nun. road building is going mi in many i-ouiit ries on quiie a prodigious scale, and I'm* ultimate benefit o! these im

proved comnuinica i ions can scarcely i>o exaggerated. It is probably mu' of the ine\itnhle results of I In* wold wide depression that in so many ream i ,-ie.s so m'li-h time and care should leave: been devoted to the building of roads. Roadwork farms an excellent outlet for unskilled labor, or lalcoi which has been displaced from its ordinary occupation. And il gives more pruc.t ion 1 results to Ihe ‘'oie. inanity than many other schemes ol t; tn ploy mi'll t that can lie devised. In New Zealand the Government has not utilised relief labor in lids diroi-tinu as fully as it might have done, but nevertheless a good clea 1 of excellent work towards the improvement of out highways lias been executed, and foi a young country our highways system will probably stand comparison will most other countries of similar extent and population. Reading on ihe. East Coast —as was to be expected- for this Cinderella district—is not as far advanced as in most other parts, bat thanks to the occasion of the Duke’s visit:, when it was found necessary to eliminate some of the dangers whicl had faced travellers for far too many

years, some improvement has been effected, and now that a commencement, has been made we trust Ihe good work will not stop until the roads in this area have been made as reasonably safe, as they can be. Our roads, especially in a district which has been denied the facilities of railway communication with the outside world, are our arteries of trade and settlement, and it is vital to tlu* development of-the country that they should be put. in order suitably to meet the recpiirements of modern transport. Anvone who ventures to count the sheep and woo! lorries, mail tracks, .-[•cam wagons, and other fast -moving

vehicles solving our country districts will realise the extent to which road (ral)ic has grown in recent years and tlie need for providing much greater margins of safety than existed a few .-cars ago. This need, resultant from the wonderful development of the

modern motor engine, is being uporecialod n.iiil provided for in most, other countries and it is a laid that, there was never before so much road building going on over such a vast :;,vn of Die world’s surface as there is to-day. In 'England the wink done in widening a ml resiirfai-itig highways anil constructing by-passes to avoid nopulous areas has been tremendous. The total mileage of public roads in

Great Britain is approximately 177,500 miles, of which .152,000 an* in England and Whiles and 25,500 in Scotland. The cost of inninlotihlice, improvement, widening, etc., and new con.-t nict ion in 101 I la was 1118,81)0,000 and in I02!l-:l(l f1i5,100.00 1. The receipts from the taxation of mulin' vtdiides lasi year mummied to i!2 l ,- 0(17,1 12, the hulk of which money was directed to assisting highway aulhoi'itie, in vlie maintenance mil improvement of classified mads. in Bor ay :i mini* ctoniprising sonio ■IOOO miles of new roads. designed to rationalise nm'u" transport • tlmmghout tin 1 cotmtry under the snpeivisvm of the State railway department, is now being carried mil. This is regarded both in Hit;gland and in Europe as an adjunct to the ambitious scheme of the British Automobile Association

for a met (ii -u ay across Europe from Calais |o Istanbul, mid thence on from Turkov to Northern India, where it would link with Ihe Indian Slate roads, the whole to be constructed by co-operative action amongst the various (lovonnnenf.s concerned. The

road from the Ghannel to the Bosphorus would be some 1800 miles long -and thm from Asiatic Turkey to the f. Klimt frontier 20(1(1 miles long. In Italy hundreds of miles' of wonderful speed wavs have been const meted, tn Norway the Government is building a erreat Plate highway tor 800 miles through the northeni provinces, with the objcH of bringing remote settlements into intercourse with the rest of the country. .Many of the old, nar-

row. sleep roads are being replaced by modem and mneh wider thorough fares, l'n Central America plans - arc going ahead for the construction of a ;;r,rif) mile road to be known as the Pan-American highway, which will link up all the capitals of the several countries forming tile Pan-American Union. Tn South America also notable, road developments are taking place, with the 1000'mile road from Rio to Montevideo and several other great, highways which it is confidently poped will form integral sections of a through route trout -Panama to Ibienos Ayres. In Canada this year will see the completion of the last i;„k (192 miles) in the great transCanadian highway establishing direct communication between the custom and western seaboards. This road through the Rockies will open to tourists an entirely new route rich in superb mountain scenery. Everywhere nations are beginning to realise the value of roads aml the factors that they are in the progressive development of a country and people--factors also, we. believe, of peace between nation and nation, for with good communications and frequent travel people will lose their narrow nationalism and gain i bettor understanding of their neighImrs and a wider outlook upon tin. world. k