The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 1910. STRANGLING LOCAL WORKS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2766, 22 March 1910, Page 4

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 1910. STRANGLING LOCAL WORKS.

The contributor who supplies an article in this issue on the question of local works touches upon one of the most vital problems in the development of the country. Nobody who has given the matter any consideration can fail to realise that our present system is all wrong, inasmuch as centralisation in Wellington is edrried to an absurd extent. The principle whereby the member for Dunedin City is called upon to vote upon the nlerits or demerits of expenditure upon a road at the Motu, and t-lio people of Invercargill are expected to pay part of the cost of a small highway at Nuhaka, is too absurd to he considered seriously. Yet every session finds thousands of these local votes passed blindfolded by members of Parliament, who frankly admit their entire ignorance concerning the expenditure they are sanctioning. Unfortunately, this method provides the opportunity for the development and maintenance of that most harmful individual—the “roads and bridges member.” Under a system whereby the expenditure on the paltriest of bridges is divided over the whole Dominion, the member who can get plenty of money expended in his district is obviously in no danger of losing popularity with his constituents. Therefore a 'political type is produced whose chief characteristic is a happy knack of being on good terms with the Government when .the (public Estimates are ’being drawn up. This in its turn produces a Government which utilises the craving of members for district grants to keep its own position secure from one Parliament to another. iSom e day, it is to be hoped, the people will arise and demand that the Government shall drop the wretched method whereby public works are always used as a means of exerting political patronage. Then under a saner system the settlors of Nuhaka will be compelled to pay for their own roads and their own bridges, but they will not be asked to .assist in paying for ,those constructed in North Auckland or in South Canterbury. Then the money -that is spent will be well spent, for the beneficiaries, having to find the money themselves, will not sanction a work unless it is really needed. and will, moreover, see that good value is obtained. Unless some reform in local government is obtained ere long things will go on from bad to worse, until what we now charitably term political “patronage” will develop into cor ruption of the worst type. \ ested interests founded on political influence will spring up, and if left alone long enough the}' will grow powerful, insolent, and grasping as an American trust. That is the danger that looms aheadHowever, to revert to thing? as they are. we arc shown in “Backblocks’ article how a bad principle in legislalation is intensified in administration. The red-tape methods which pervade our Public Works Department really have the effect of strangling public works and of arresting the development of the country. It is a most expensive and a most unsatisfactory system. 8o long as a central department- in Wellington has .the doling out of grants so long, we suppose, will it be necessary to arrange for many checks upon the expenditure it is supposed to be responsible for, but some effort should be made to prevent those checks from multiplying until they become a serious harrassment to local bodies and to settlement generally.