PUBLIC WORKS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18073, 11 January 1921, Page 2

PUBLIC WORKS.

A TOO-SLOW POLICY. NORTH v. SOUTH. INTERESTING COMPARISONS. Mr P. E. Cheal, chairman of the Auckland Railways and Developmeu:. League, is at present in town. While here Mr Cheal purposes arranging (for the local distribution of his League’s Jubilee Annual, a publication of national importance. Mr Cheal is an ardent advocate of progressive development., and his views on the subject are of genuine interest:— Tite Dominion’s transport systsia has never been recognised since 1870, when Sir Julius Vogel initiated a scheme of “public works policy that doubled tne population in ten years. No Government nor people seems to realise the importance of economic transit. Yet the whole prosperity of a country is based on its power to move, on which the whole social fabric rests. If the transit system is blocked the whole of the social system ot a country is thrown out of gear. You may as well stop the circulation of the biood in the human body and expect life as to expect national prosperity without economic transit. All lite is based on motion, am’ without motion there cannot te life. In the fifteenth century Spain was the greatest world power in the universe. AH the Continent of Europe was under her sway, and Antwerp, known to our soldier boys, was the emporium of the world. Spain and Portugal ruled the seas, .but when the destruction of the Armada, wrested the sea power from them they went down and out. Space will not permit .giving any adequate conception of the tremendous results based on transit, but we will mention two immensely populous countries with great commercial possibilities and values practically dead for want of a transit system. India and China would be revolutionised by a transit system, the results of which are shown in the rapid growth of Japan, with a transit system on land and sea. Mr Dalton, the Trades Commissioner. understands this when he states that in public works the Dominion has been stagnant for some years past. The Auckland Railway and Development. League has been alive to this, and has consistently reiterated that public works should be pushed on in spite of the war. We find the Australian Commonwealth Government carrying out a huge transit railway, 1051 miles long, with 4ft B’.£in gauge, with 801 b to the yard weight of rails, from Port. Augusta to Kalgoorlie during the war period, 1914 to 1918. Our rate of railway construction from 1910 to 1920 averaged 28.7 miles per annum. How can a country develop and prosper on such a meagre mileage of less than thirty miles per annum for the whole Dominion. What is the use of constantly call-

ing for increased product! >n without increased transit facilities?

To leave generalities and come to concrete facts that will inteiest the general reader: There has been an idea cleverly inculcated in the minds of the people of the Dominion that the Auckland Provincial District has had a lion's share of loan allocation during the past session, and that it has had tar more titan in the past goes without saying, but even now there is large room for improved and increased expenditure in the Auckland district and the North Island as a whole. The fact is that for over ll.trty year sthe South Island Public Works Minister’has had control of the public works, and the greater portion has gone south. This was all right when, in 1881, the South island had 103.0d0 more population and greater exports and larger representation than the North island, but by 19:11 —twenty years—the increased population of the South Island had given place to 8439 majority in the North, which jumped to 64,898 in 1906, 1 19.003 in 191 1, 21 2,695 in 1916, and now stands at over 21 9.000 excess population in the North Island; double the exports, and a representation of 45 European members as against 31 in the South, and yet, through all this change, no South Island Public Works .Minister recognised the greater claims of the North in public works allocations. It is true it has been more than the South, but. nothing like the measure that should in all fairness have been given to us. In 18S0 the South Island had 450 miles more railways than the North. In 1907 572 miles; in 1908 568 miles, brought down >.o 4 I'l miles in 1909 by taking over the Main Trunk and Manawatu lines. Bui. from I'JC-9 to 1920 the milcage increase in the South has been raised 455 iri’les in 1920 more than Lie South island. How is it done in the face of less railway construction in the South for years past? Well, t H -.-re are over three millions sterling lying in unopened lines. 4?e n miles each year would be added to open lines in ‘.lie South—thus keeping up the niilerlge. Now to come to some cogent reasons whj it was time that tne North Island snould have fairer treatment tban in the past. We will glance at a tew statistics:

Railways.—4sB less miles of Northern railways pay 7 per cent., against the 458 increased Southern mileage paying about 3 per cent, oil construction, rhe Nortaeru railways pay over half a million per annum luoie than the Southern railways. Yet the railway mileage in the South is on an average about one mile to every 202 persons, ana in the North one nine for every 557 persons.

Population.—TVlU; In forty yexrs the North island increased bto.ouo, against I'Jl.uUO iji the South, over 319,600 increase ill the North, thus pulling up the 103,000 majority of inc Son tn in 1881, and now standing ac an increase or 219,000 pop-na-tion.

Valuations.—The total valuations of the Dominion in 1919 was 445 minions sterling, the North island 286 millions and the South Isiatid 159 millions—a diJlerence of 126 15 millions, but if you aivide the ZU3 ii-.iiiious by the North Island’s popu - lation, 692,000, it gives £413 per head for every man, woman, and child in the North island, and 15J millions ot Southern, values divided by 472,000 South Island population gives an average of £337, or £7 Vi iess for every person in the South than the Norm. Either we are overvalued or the South undervalued? At any rate it means that on these values, out of £L3,90u,00u contributed to me Revenue, the North island pays some eight millions sterling.

Occupations.—ln twenty years, 1900 to 1919, the total holdings taken up in the Dominion were 17,983, North Island 14,449, South Island 3474. O the 14,499 holdings and occupations Auckland takes up 8791 holdings, more than twice that of the rest of the North Island, and nearly half the total holdings in the’ Dominion. It means that on an average there has been about 440 holdings per annum taken up in the Auckland district, against about 43 holdings per annum taken up in the Wellington Provincial District, and further, the 8791 holdings in the Auckland District averaged 247 acres each, and in Wellington the 857 holdings averaged 1350 acres each, so that from a closer settlement point of view the largest expenditure of the annual appropria-tions-for public works should be in the North Island, and the Auckland district especially. The population is 28 per cent, of the Dominion, and its district comprises one-fourth of the area of the Dominion. It contributes, on a population basis of 333,000, some four millions to the Consolidated Avenue, against about three millions from the Wellington District and some two and a half millions from Otago and Canterbury districts respectively. And, beyond all, the Auckland District, has some six million acres unsettled and fit for close settlement

I think this should appeal to any fair-minded man as an unanswerable reason why, in the interests of the Dominipn as a whole, the public expenditure for railways, roads, cajtals, and electricity, a very large measure of expenditure is due to our northern district.

This is a very cursory view of the pcsition, but I think it has been put fairly and squarely in all its phases. It must not be forgotten that, as the Hon. J. G. Coates states, a large portion of allocations for roads and bridges is on the pound for pound principle, and to carry out a programme of that kind over six million acres of territory, to act justly, means far larger expenditure in the future than during the past thirty years.