OUR RAILWAYS

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 22, 27 January 1922, Page 9

OUR RAILWAYS

PUSH FOUCY ADVOCATED. RAILWAY LEAGUE RESOLUTIONS. Pushing on with railway works in times of depression is a policy that was advocated by a number of speakers at the annual meeting of the Auckland Railway League yesterday afternoon. "The Government should raise all the money it can for development purposes," declared the president (Mr. J. 11. Gunson). "If, on account of the slump in prices, expenditure on railways is restricted, the sufferings of the coontry v.ill be immeasurably greater in the long run." But Mr. T. Coates said he could not support expenditure until cheaper money and labour came about. Farmers, he said, could scarcely afford te pay 5/ a day, and could not get labour when public bodies were paving 10/ for it. Mr. A. Rowlands laid it down as a good business rule that attention should bo concentrated in bad times on those things which paid best. Various sections of the North Island railways were paying—the Dargaville section particularly so. These paying sections would do oven better if linked up into or with trunk lines, and expenditure should be made in this direction. Mr. R. H. Cook advocated railway development hand in hand with the development of hydro-electric power. There was plenty of money to lie raised, and it should be devoted to these enterprises. Mr. P. E. Cheal said the earning power sunk in the work of the North trunk line would be greatly increased if the line were finished in twelve months' time. The prcsi; : f jit. in moving the adoption of tho (a summary of which was published in yesterday's "Star"), congratulated Mr. Cheal and Mr. R. R. Hunt (the secretary) on the work they had done for the League. The League had done much to promote the railway interests of the North Island, and owing to the increase of population the predominance of the South in respect to railway construction was a thing of the past. Mr. R. E. Hornblow complained of tho apathy of the city commercial community in respect to this important matter. Tbe "neglected North" would carry a population of 230,000; yet there were settlers there who were still waiting for the facilities promised them forty years ago. Resolutions were carried to ask for ballasting and plate-laying between Waihi and Matata: the acceleration of the construction of disjointed North Island lines, in the interests of the whole Dominion: the linking up of various sections of the Bay of Plenty lines to join up with the main line at Waihi: the construction of thirteen bridges between Tauranga and Katikati of lengths varying from 50ft to 500 ft: and for the connection of sixteen miles between Dargaville" and the Northern Trunk line.