Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1904. RAKAIA RAILWAY BRIDGE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume xxii, Issue 6427, 21 November 1904, Page 2

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1904. RAKAIA RAILWAY BRIDGE.

la Saturday's issue we published the text of a letter from the Minister of Kail ways to the member for the district relating to the maintenance of the Rakaia Bridge. I'he unfair procedure of the Government in this matter has already been referred to by us on more thau one occasion, and the question will come up for discussion again at the meeting of the County Council to be held on Wednesday next. The action of the Government in approving of the proposal of the Railway Department that local bodies should be called on to defray a large fraction of the cost of maintaining combined road and rail way traffic bridges in districts controlled by them appears to us to be quite indefensible. What ground the Railway Department bases its claim on it, is quite impossible to discover. When the Rakaia bridge was handed over to the Department by the old Provincial Council which built it 30 years ago, it was on the distinct understanding that the Government should undertake the cost of its future maintenance. That was the stipulated understanding under which the Department accepted the bridge, and as far as we know, nothing has occurred in the interval to justify the high-handed action of the Government in notifying the County .Council that the sum of .£3OO would be deducted from the subsidy payable by the Government to the Counoi', for the upkeep of the bridge. The Department estimate the expenditure for maintenance at £800, and have decided to de^uot £300 of this amount from the .£lO%, which ia the amount of the subsidy due to tbe County Council this year from various sources, The amount deducted was originally to be £4.'OQ, but the letter published on Saturday from Kir Joseph Ward informs Mr J. MoLachlan that the Department have decided to reduce that amount to £300, Men'ion is niada by the Minister of the fact that the Ashburton County Council was not represented at the Commission set up by the Government to hear the objections raised by the three local bodieß interested. Whether the Selwjn and Waitaki County Councils sent representatives or not, we do not know; but the Ashburton County Council acted as they did on the advice of their legal adviser, who held that the Council should refuse to recognise that tbe Government Commission had any status for the discussion of this matter. The action of the Railway Department was a purely arbitrary one, and the County Council has decided to contest the right of the Government to act as they have done. The Rakaia bridge js of very little real service to the residents of the Ashburton County for road traffic purpose's, Jfc has been stated on good authority that it is used by 20 ratepayers at the outside, and that it serves the purpose more of a colonial highway for stock-crossing purposes and through traffic from and to Otago and Southland, thfin a local avenue of communication. Taking a general yjejy of the cisc, one would think that it can hardly! "c denied that it is the duty of the Government to maintain such highways themsolves without putting any of the cost on the shoulders of the local bodies. Anyway, the amount impounded by rhe Government is out of all proportion to the service actually conferred upon the County, and to the wear and tear caused by the road traffic, the strain of which is certainly not os.e-tenth of that caused by the heavy railway trains passing over the structure. It is clear that even if the Department officials manage to evade the ]e<*al and moral obligation which readers the Railway Department liable fur the total upkeep of the bridge, the amount they claim from the County Council is an excessively large one. The Council have adopted a wise course in deciding to fight the Government over this question. Whoa the bridge was handed over 30 years »go by the Provincig.l Council, the Government undertook to be entirely responsible for its maintenance, and ifc will be difficult for them to justify their present action in a court of law.