THE Wairarapa Age WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1936. TAKING OVER HIGHWAYS.

Wairarapa Age, 7 October 1936, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1936. TAKING OVER HIGHWAYS.

For some months past the New Zealand Counties Association has been opposing actively the proposal of the Minister for Public Works (the Hon. R. Semple) that some 4,000 miles of main highways should be taken over by the State from the local bodies now responsible for their construction and maintenance. The facts are again emphasised in a statement just issued by the Counties Association in which it reports an interview by a delegation from its executive with the Minister of Public Works. One of the principal tacts brought out is that the 4,000 miles of highways to be taken over in the first instance by the State are intended to be only an instalment. The interview elicited from the Minister (it is observed) his intention first to create some of the most important arterial roads, to be called State highways, as a first instalment, with the desire to continue that policy until even 12,000 miles of State highways were created, making, as the Minister said, a national roading system, and with the Public Works Department co-operating with the counties in respect of the remaining roads.

It was pointed out to the Minister by the representatives of the Counties Association that his proposals were “whether intentionally or not, a violent attack on the county system of local government and the substitution therefor of centralised bureaucratic control.’’

When the State highway control and administration were taken over

by the department (it was added), many counties would lose the community of interest between their different parts, the State highways being in many cases the backbone of the county, and such counties would tend to disintegrate into road boards and as the policy of State highways proceeded, so the county system must give way to centralised bureaucratic control, with groups of small road boards administering the byways under departmental supervision. It was emphasised also that under the Minister’s proposals, counties which had raised loans for highway improvement would be penalised, while those counties which had neglected the construction or improvement of highways would benefit.

There cannot be any doubt that the creation of State highways means wrecking the system of local government so far as counties are concerned. The great amount of work needed on secondary and other roads can be done far more economically in association with highway work than if it had to be handled in a fragmentary fashion by petty local authorities.. The way to economy and efficiency is to entrust all road, works to enlarged local authorities, able to employ the best engineering advice and to make full use of la-bour-saving machinery, with a minimum amount of interference by the State. What is wanted is efficient organisation, with an elimination of overlapping, whether by one local body and another or by local bodies and the State. The Minister’s proposals would make an efficient system of rural local government impossible. Indeed, logically, the proposals should aim at the extinction of local government in favour of a complete system of bureaucratic control. It is bewildering, as the executive of the Counties Association has observed, that we have the Minister of Internal Affairs urging an amalgamation of counties to ensure greater efficiency and economy, while the Minister of Public Works is proposing legislation that would cut down the efficiency of counties and lead ultimately to their complete disintegration.