ROAD MAINTENANCE

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 59, Issue 72, 28 April 1930, Page 2

ROAD MAINTENANCE

Per Press Association.

SHOULD FARMERS PAY LESS? MR POLSON FAVOURS MORE PETRGL TAX.

INVERCARGILL, Last night. The cpinion that holders of eountry land were called on to bear too great a burdeli in rates for the maintenance of roads was expressed by Mr W. J. Polson, Dominien president of the F armers' Union, in the course of an address here last evening, when he enunciated the poliey of derating eountry lands and substituting increased petrol tax. Mr Polson said that formerly the farmer had been rated to provide roads to enable him to convey his produce to the nearest village for marketing. Transport had been by liis own horsedrawn vehieles, but now there rvas a national system of transport by motoi-s, and huge siuns of mone.y were going out of the eountry for petrol. oil and motor vehieles, rates were now actually a subsidy on the traffic that was running in opposition to the railways. Therefore, it was necessai-y that some definite and drastic action should be taken to derate fann lands. This pvoblem had been tackled in Britain, where farm lands had been derated as a rneans of relief to the primary producers. Mr Polson said that 50 per cent cf the motor cars in New Zealand were owned by the conntrv eommunity, and this meant that the farmer naid half of the petrol tax. He favoured increasing the petrol tax to 6d or 8d per gallon, which would be expended on district highways. Counties should be extended iii order to reduce working costs and overhead expenditnre, and a portion o the petrol tax with the usual Government subsidy should be devoted to the maintenance of back roads which would prove a tremendous boon to the farming eommunity.