MAIN HIGHWAYS FUND

Taranaki Daily News, 9 November 1932, Page 8

MAIN HIGHWAYS FUND

ATTITUDE OF EGMONT COUNCIL.

TOO MANY CONTROLLING BOARDS. That local bodies should not embarrass the Government during the present difficult times but should endeavour to assist the Government in every way was the opinion expressed by members oi the Egm on t County Council .yesterday in declining to support a resolution passed .by a conference in Canterbury urging that the highways fund should be maintained and that at the earliest possible date all special motor taxation should be paid into that fund. «The council discussed the purpose ot the fund. The chairman (Cr. W. C. Green) said he had always opposed the setting up of the Main Highways Board as the Public Works Department could have done the work; practically the same engineers did the work. Or. u. Gibson considered the country would be in a far better position had more than half of the highways fund been expended on the byroads instead of all being spent on the main roads, some of it alongside the railway. The chairman said the Government was entitled to take some of the tax on benzine and motor tyres for general purposes, ine intention of the National Expenditure Commission’s report, a councillor said, was to delete the overlapping that took place with local bodies, but that woul take some time. _ Assurance that it was not the Government’s intention to abolish the separate account 'of the main highways fund was given by the Prime Minister •(the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes) when he was replying on October '27 to a, deputation representing the Counties Association, the North and South Island Motor Unions, the Farmers’ Union and the Canterbury Progress ’League, which protested against the National Expenditure Commission’s recommendation that the fund should be abolished. <■