OLD SCHEME DENOUNCED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 127, 31 May 1937, Page 8

OLD SCHEME DENOUNCED

MAIN HIGHWAYS CONTROL BURDEN ON COUNTIES MR. SEMPLE AT GISBORNE [F« AMOrfatl.al GISBORNE, May 30. A denunciation of the old scheme of things, whereby the construction and maintenance of main highway was a liability on county councils, was made by the Minister ot Public Works (Hon. R. Semple) at Gisborne on Saturday while speaking to a deputation representative of the Cook County Council ratepayers. “It was a colossal blunder to ever have asked the counties of this country to pay money towards main highways," he asserted. To that policy the Minister attributed the plight of many counties throughout the Dominion of being unable to find money for secondary and backblock roads. The Minister said the Government had taken over 2000 miles of highways last year, and as a result had saved the counties £200,000. The counties never should have been called upon, io pay money for highways, he continued. "The main arterial highways are not county liability any more than the railways are, and counties should never have been asked to pay. It was a colossal blunder to ever have asked the counties to pay money toward main highways. If that had not been done the counties would have had money to spend on county roads. To-day there are hundreds ot farmers stuck in the mud and we are trying to patch up the mistakes of the past," declared the Minister.

"It was a political blunder of the greatest magnitude. I am not going to suggest that a review ot these liabilities will not take place. It will some day, unless we have some other system of construction and maintenance of roads. Those farmers who have been stuck in the mud for years will not stay in the mud. To leave the farmer there it not means hamstringing him, but it prevents him from taking the total possible production from his property, and that automatically afiacts the nation as a whole. '

As soon as I got the opportunity, 1 gave the maximum relief possible at the time. The plight the counties are in to-day was brought about by their being saddled with a burden they should never have been asked to carry,” the Minister concluded.