ROAD IMPROVEMENT

Waipa Post, Volume 41, Issue 3187, 12 August 1930, Page 8

ROAD IMPROVEMENT

RAID ON HIGHWAY FUND. DRASTIC POSSIBILITIES. Commenting on the proposal of the Government to raid the highway funds and to impose taxation on motorists to make up the deficiency in other directions, Mr A. E. Ansell, M.P., and president of the South Island Motor Union, stated in Wellington that he had received hundreds of telegrams from all parts of the Dominion urging him to make every endeavour to combat an increase in Petrol Tax to be used in the manner suggested by ' the Government. Mr Ansell mentioned that in the future there might be very serious consequences if the present suggestions were allowed to become law. He stated that if the Government was successful in its attempt to charge interest on the free grants that had been made in the past from the Consolidated Fund to the Main Highways Fund —such grants being part of the original agreement when motor taxation was approved by road users —then the charging of interest on these amounts pre-supposes that there is a debt due by the Highways Fund to the Consolidated of the amount upon which interest is charged. If this is so, the Government proposes to create a debt of £1,200,000 and it will, of- course, be a debt that will increase year by year and will gradually cripple the operations of the Highways Board to the detriment of motor traffic and particularly to the detriment of back country roads. Mr Ansell added that the present proposals mean destruction of intentions of Highways Act and denies counties the right to increased subsidies because of increased motor traffic. This particularly concerns county ratepayers who, under the new proposals cannot hope for any reduction in local rates and is very severe on local bodies adjacent to large centres. Motorists, both city and rural, have expressed to me their willingness to co-operate on any well thought out and equitable plan for progress of roading problems. The present suggestion leads nowhere. Mr G. W. Huchison, secretary of the Auckland Automobile Association, when interviewed, stated that already motorists were beginning to feel the pinch and a number of letters had been received, particularly from country members, expressing their regret that they would be forced to give up motoring as the extra cost of petrol would impose an additional expense which their financial position would not warrant.