The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1907. PUBLIC WORKS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIC, Issue 13438, 9 November 1907, Page 4

The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1907. PUBLIC WORKS.

There-; tire several highly" conimehdah'lo features about the Public Works Statemeni presented to the House of Repre- .. saut-atives last evening by the Hon. J, McGowan. At the outset we should! like to associate ourselVEiß 'with the ActingMinister's expression of regret at the enforced ,' r-etirement of Mr Hall-Jones from. the control of, the important: BepartttietnV over which he hits presided for no long, and also to endorse, Mr MicGowaii'fi-1 jiope ■ ' that the. resit and change will result-in the return, of hia colleague with his health completely restored). But leaving personal considerations: for. a brief and necessarily inadequate review of the Statement itself, we find' a congenial task in congratulating .the Government upon the wise policy it has adopted in regard to that mast important 'branch of public works — \ railway construction. We have always contended ■ that the proper way to go about the formation, of a railway system for the colony, is to. concentrate the 1 expenditure and the ; energies of the Be partmeut upon lines which are of ria : tional importance,' leaving the 'construction of local undertakings for a more convenient time'': when, such works as the Main Trunk "railway have been got out of'hand. A perusal of the .summary of the Statement appearing in, pur columns. this morning shows- that, tho Government is ..'.acting up to tho business-like [irofessiphs which have been made on 'numerous occasions duiing the last year by Ministers when local .deputations have .endeavoured to extract from them promises of "support for projected lines which, while' - important enough to the localities concernedi, ought not to be allowed to interfere with the .speedy construction of the trunk railways. This year there is to bo no Railways Authorisation Bill «to swell the already unwieldy list of lines' ~ which are (scattered. about in every corner of the colony. ( , Tho works now in hand are to-be kept going, but their number is . not to be increased, with the exception that; a few miles are to be> added,in the case of one or two lines use- ' fulness- and earning power wi]l thei-eby 1)2 increased. ; This decision nfcfc (•'» add to the; of the coltuiy in rcgaud to new raihvay undertakings appears to us entirely wise, and - wo have not 'hesitated to commend it, although in doing so we have been obliged Ao 'dis« i countenance attempts that ■ hafe been made in South. Canterbury to hifduce the Government to ran a branch jihe from Orari back through Geraldine). That line, and others like it, will comie in good time, and if it were poasihle to bommence '

it at once with a reasonable prospect of such an expenditure as would permit its speedy completion, we should have no thin <r tn say against it. But as long a,; tlie" «ItiveruiUfiiL has its hands. fn-I of

mine important constitutive t-ch-.uie?, and as long as it its .borrowing within a wisely reasonable limit, the local lines must wait, unless the people who want them follow the example of the Waikaka syndicate which provided tlu- fund-.', for the branch railway near Gove. That is a plan which might- bo adr.pt;-d with advantage in other parts of the w/u.ny, and which would do a great deal to v.lieve the Government from the tremendous pressure exerted upon it in favor: of innumerable suggestions for additional lines. But with the croppage cf the Otago -Central, and th? completion of the North Island Main Trunk line, which is now well in sight, a lot of money will be released for the purposes of railway, construction on the subsidiary lines. It is apparent, however, that the Government intends to taper off in this direction, for the total vote proposed thi> year for railway construction is only £775.000. as against a gross total expenditure for the last financial year cf £1.345.795. In former days we siior.'d have been tempted to see in this economy an astute preparation for the general election which is due. next year, but we trust that the moderation in last night's Statement is not preliminary to a boom expenditure in iti? successor, with the familiar object of "sweetening" the constituencies on the eve of the polls. We should not be surprised, however, if the reduction is due to quite a. different reason, and that the Government anticipate some difficulty, in face cf the present movements in the -world's money markets, in raising the loan money for which Parliament is to be asked to give its authority. Having commended the Minister and his colleagues upon the correct departure they have taken in regard to railway construction, we feel constrained to offer our felicitations also upon their abandonment of the hair-brained schemes, which have figured in previous Public Works Statements and in various reports prepared by "departmental engineers; for the utilisation, of the water power of the colony- As Mr McGowan remarks, the money required to finance these undertakings would be so huge that the thing would amount to a fresh public works policy, for which the country is- not yet ripe, and the expense of which it is totally'unprepared to incur. This water-power scheme, running at its own estimate into some* twelve millions sterling, was one of the fe\r fads which mystified the critic of Mr Halt-Jones T s otherwise level-headed career as an administrator, and we are glad to see that the present Government has decided to drop it and also to remove the opposition which was formerly offered to the attempts of private enterprise to develop power from rivers on -a small scale suitable to the immediate re : quirements of the industries for which electricity was desired. The rest of the statement seems to call for no particular comment. As the Minister admitted, the rate *>f expenditure still remains high, the estimate for the current year being only £200.000 below the £2.352,789 spent last year- Of this amount far too much is to be obtained by direct taxation, the .proposed transfer from - revenue being £BOO,OOO. We have on many occasions drawn attention to the faulty financial policy of taxing the people for the construction of permanent works which ought to be paid out of the colony's capital account,'but as long as the people are prepared to submit to over-taxation to the extent of £BOO,OO a year (nearly £1 per head of the white population), the syßfem may be expected to continue.