AN UNFAIR BURDEN.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18650, 20 August 1930, Page 12

AN UNFAIR BURDEN.

THE HIGHWAYS FUND. CITY DWELLER’S PLIGHT. (By “A.8.C." in “The Evening Post.” The rise in the petrol tax has been generally welcomed in the country districts. People there with a knowledge of roading realise that it is a step further towards rating relief; that the present rise has been to lighten the load on the Consolidated Fund, i.e., the load on the taxpayer in general, rather than the load on farm property in particular, which is the immediate concern of the farming community. They know their turn will come, for a further rise in the petrol tax is a foregone conclusion, the principle of the user paying for the roads having become strongly entrenched in public estimation, and the opinion being held that petrol and tires form the most equitable basis on which to establish the necessary taxation. It is not the intention here to discuss whether that basis is equitable or not, although the matter is more than open to debate. What is of greater importance is to examine the distribution of the proceeds. When people agree that the user should pay they mean precisely what they say. that, the user should pay for the roads he uses. By far the greater proportion of motor transport takes place in the cities and environs, and next to the cities the boroughs and towns throughout the Dominion. Under the allocation of the Highways Fund, however, only 8 per cent, of the proceeds goes to the cities. On -what basis that allocation was arranged is not at all clear, but it seems possible that the length of actual main highway passing through towns and cities must have been taken. If this is the case it is a scandalous thing that an injustice so great to city dwellers should have been perpetrated. When the farmers made their demand for relief in regard to highways they made it largely on the ground that city motorists went flocking out at week-ends and holiday times all over the country, tearing up the roads, and on this account they persuaded a large body of non-thinking people that equitable assistance would be to place a universal tax on motor traffic and apply it to the main highways. The result, of course, was the Main Highways Fund and its allocation; then, in due course, the petrol tax.

The vast proportion of the proceeds of motor taxation comes from the cities and back into the cities goes only 8 per cent. A 1 small proportion comes from the country districts, and into the country goes almost the lot. It is a delightful exploitation of the town cousin, this getting him to pay for miles of country road he never did and never will use. and at the same time bear the burden of his own city roads, with practically no help whatever. Once the city dweller wakens to the fact that, though he never has, and probably never will, be able to run a motor-car. it is he who actually bears the expense of other people doing so, once the city dweller realises that he has to meet practically the whole of the cost of his own city roading. and that of the country as well, no doubt there will be an urgent inquiry into the whole roading position, particularly as the non-motorist is not only supplying the means for others to run cars, but at the same time, and precisely from that cause, is paying increased tram and train fares for his own transportation; once, I say, that the city dweller really becomes awake to this exploitation of himself, there must result an overhaul of a position that never should have arisen, with a people supposed to have intelligence enough to cast a vote, and alertness enough to retain a say in the handling of their money. The highways policy—if ever there was a highways "policy,” at any rate so far as finance is concerned —is an utter farce, and the sooner it is ended the better. With a petrol tax of sevenpence per gallon, a tax almost wholly borne by city dwellers. passed on to them in the course of business, we have not an iota of improvement in the highways prospects, and city people must awaken to the fact that every penny motor taxation goes up, if things remain as they are, is going to fall, the great weight of it, upon their own innocent shoulders. The city dweller must put up a fight for a fdir share of the Highways Fund, and insist on a method of allocation that will definitely provide it, or some other method must be taken to place the highways burden where it properly lies. More, the highways should be called upon to prove theneconomic claim to the expense they have entailed, and justify the increasing drain they are imposing upon the community. It is time to call a halt and take stock of the position.