PUBLIC EXPENDITURE.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VII, Issue 2047, 6 September 1920, Page 8

PUBLIC EXPENDITURE.

CLAMS OF THE NORTH. DEPUTATION TO MINISTERS. rrets Aniorlalion. WELLINGTON, September 6. A deputation representing the Auckland and Poverty Bay district:! waited on the Prime Minister' (Kt. lion. \V. F. Massey) and the Hon. ,1. G. Coates (Minister of Public Works) to-day and urged the claims of the North Island to a fair share of public works expenditure. Mr P. E. Cheal, Auckland, said there was a growing need for the North Island to assert itself. Its claims should bo put before those of tho South Island. Nine million acres of land awaited settlement in tho North Island, against about 3,500,000 in tho South Island. The necessity of developing the North Auckland and East Coast railways was stressed by other speakers. Mr Massey, replying, said he agreed with tho opinion expressed by some of the speakers that it would be unwise to put one part of the country against another. Auckland was undoubtedly the most progressive province to-day, and while it was true that, a great deal of Government money had been spent in the district, during the last 15 or 20 years, he felt that the country as a wholo was reaping the benefit. Auckland was the last of tho provinces to commence its development, and therefore it had been nocessary, whatever Government was in power, to expend a great deal of money thero in recent years. The North Island was rapidly overtaking the South Island in the matter of railway construction, and he thought the time was not far distant when it would have an equal, or, possibly a greater, mileage. He defended the expenditure on tho Otira tunnel as being necessary to make the lines on either side reproductive, and ventured the opinion that there would be returned a higher rate of interest than many people imagined. The East Coast railway was a line that the Government was anxious to complete, and the Whangaroi line was one of those which must be completed. The whole country, however, would have justice done to it by the Government.