"CLOSE THE GAPS."

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 220, 14 September 1923, Page 6

"CLOSE THE GAPS."

RAILWAY LEAGUE'S SLOGAN. COGENT ARGUMENTS IN HANDY FORM. For a long time the Auckland Railways and Development League did good work, lint tlie public was not always kept advised of its cfTorts. Nowadays tlie League has adopted tlie very sensible practice of issuing bulletins from time to time. Two of these well-pre-pared little publications have just been circulated. Perhaps their chief value in educating the public lies in the fact that they both have excellent maps. Where railways are passing through new country some map is ahsolutely essential if the public is to he really interested in the matter. People read or perhaps talk about the "East Coast railway" or the ".Stratford line," but not one man in a hundred has a very clear idea of the locality. This is specially true of the East Coast line, because although it is so close to Auckland it is very far away from a communication point of view. People that live in the district and commercial travellers know what is lining talked about when strange new names are spoken of, but the ordinary towndweller is not much the wiser. One of the bulletins just issued by the League asks the public to "Help fill the gaps in the groat arterial railway to the East Coast. Auckland to Gisbornc."' Inside there is a capital map showing what has been done and the gaps that want filling—that between Motu. about half-way between (Ji.sborne and Opotiki. and Tancatua, the present eastern terminus of the line in the Bay of Plenty: while the next , nnd that between Tauranga round the back of Tauranga harbour to Athenree which is just north of Katikati. Then the map puts in the proposed deviation from Pokeno to Paeroa, and shows emphatically that this deviation should be most strongly urged by Auckland and the Bay of Plenty, as it is undoublcdlv the key to making the best use of the East Coast line. A second bulletin issued by the League shows the traps in the railway system of tlie province as a whole—the East ComsC the North Auckland, and the Stratford lines. "Bridge the gaps promptly" is the slogan, and these handy little bulletins give most excellent reasons why we should work hard to have the slogan fulfilled.