PREMIER RESOLVED.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 134, 8 June 1929, Page 10

PREMIER RESOLVED.

SOUTH ISLAND RAILWAY. PART OF ELECTION POLICY. "SQUEAKING COMMENT" ANSWERED. (By Telegraph.—Special Reporter.) ROTORUA, this day. Another reference to the Government's intention to complete the WardParnassus gap on the South Island Main Trunk railway system was made last 'night by the Prime Minister. He said the Government proposed to proceed with the construction of all lines enumerated during the election campaign, live in all, and when they were finished no further railroads would be taken in hand. The Government could not be expected to carry out a policy different from the one on which it had gone to the country.

The question of completing the gap, said Sir Joseph, was engaging the attention of a few people, notably the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Auckland "Herald," but it was 'a' project which had been endorsed in the "seventies" by the late Sip Julius Vogel. Sir Joseph characterised'the objections to the line as "squeaking comment from the Far North," but against that, he said, he had received from the Otago Expantion League a telegram -which stated: "Wβ strongly support your action in pushing forward the completion of the South Island Main Trunk railway. Similar those being urged now were made against the North Island Main Trunk and Midland railways. If such objections hold good, all railway construction in the Dominion should cease." Why, , asked Sir Joseph, did those who objected to the completion of the WardParnassus gap not protest against the completion of the Taranaki-Auckland and the Gisborne-Napier lines? A Voice: Too much competition. Sir Joseph: I did not hear what you said, but I think you are quite right. (Laughter and applause.) The Prime Minister said there were short-distance railways not earning interest. There was ample reason to stop making all short railways and to stop running trains on some of them, but the completion of the South. Island. gap was a very different matter.