The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-08-22
VENEZUELA SETS
 PACE FOR ROADS
Gomez Responsible For The. Best Highways In
 South America

Venezuela's present highway system incomplete as it is, has absolutely nc rival for excellence elsewhere in South America, except perhaps in the highly prosperous and now revolution-ridden Brazilian state, of Sac Paulo, writes Karl w. Miller in Venezuela letter to the Detroit News.
 When Juan Vincente Gomez became president of Venezuela in 1908, by the frank and unequivocal process of warn ing his predecessor and former chief, General Castro, not to come ashore on the latter's return from sojourn in Europe, the situation in Venezuela with respect to highways was that prevail ing elsewhere in South America. The roads, generally speaking, were mere cart tracks, sketchily graded in spots but rarely crowned and ditched.
 Being without drainage, they were worse than useless throughout the rainy season, which in Venezuela means seven months out of the year.
 The generals shrewd political in. tuition told him that the popularity and stability of his regime in it's early stages must rest on the acquiescence of big farmers and land owners, who in Venezuela as elsewhere in agricultural Latin-America, are the power behind every throne. There was no surer or more obvious method of courting the approval of this influential class than that of lowering costs of transporta- tion between farm and market, which were annually eating into the profits of the haciendas.
 Railroads Costly
 Railroad building has always been a fetish in South America since the rail road was invented, and the laying of steel rails was the manifest and ortho- dox solution of any transportation problem. But Venezuela had recently had bitter, experience in that direction. A German company had built the Gran Ferrocarrit de Venezuela on a sort of cost plus. basis, and by dint of con structing S6 tunnels and PIP viaducts and bridges and contrived to spend if teen million dollars, or $135,00O a mile, on 112 miles of line. ,.
 When the Venezuelans protested the German government had sent warships and bombarded Puerto Cabello to em- phasize the justice of the construction company's claims. Railroads were not popular just then in Venezuela. The alternative to railroads was highways.
 Gomez decided to build highways, and when he makes a decision he seldom fails to stick to it. There has been very little railroad construction parti- cipated in by the government in Vene- zuela since Tel General assumed office. More than 40 per cent, and generally much more than 50 per cent of the money appropriated for public works by the federal congress annually is used in the construction and mainten- ance of highways The roads are of natural dirt or gravel, as must be the case in thinly populated country, but almost invariably they are so drained as to be negotiable by motor cars the year around.
 Most of the population of the country resides in the mountain valleys of the seacost range, whence come the coffee and cacao that form the principal agri- cultural exports of Venezuela; and it was inevitable that the backbone of the road system should be a highway par alleling the coast through the populated district both for economic and for strategic reasons. This highway radi- ntes in two sections from Caracas, the one being known as the Great Highway of the West and the other as the Great Highway of the East.
 More to Come.
 From the great highway roads and projected roads branch off to the north toward the various seaports and to the south toward the cattle country of the LlanOs, thus affording highway con- munication between all the principal towns and cities of the thickly popu- luted northern section.
 When President Gomez formulated his plans for a highway system back in 1909, the possibilities of motor trans portation did not, of course, enter into his calcuIati tions. Now however, the Gomez administration prepares and publishes comparative statistics show ing costs of transportation by rail. ways and by highways.
 The figures emphasize the fact that use of the truck eliminates carriage charges at the places of origin and destination of the freight. It is estl- mater that 940,00O bags of coffee and 352,000 bags of cacoa are annually moved over the highways to railroad station or port.
 EXIT THE DIME NOVEL