The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1932. THE LINK WITH TARANAKL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 264, 7 November 1932, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1932. THE LINK WITH TARANAKL.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

Naturally there are rejoicings to-day over the completion of the direct railway connection between Auckland and Taranaki, but one cannot help feeling that the joy would have been less restrained had the completion of the line been celebrated some years ago, before the iron of delay had entered so deeply into the soul, and before the road had begun to be a serious competitor of the railway. However, the line is now finished, the two provinces have at last a direct railway connection, which must bring them closer together, and the completion is an outward and visible sign of the final conquest of another great forest area. To-day's ceremony really marks the end of another stage in the history of New Zealand pioneering. A contributor describes elsewhere what the country between Stratford and Te Kuiti was like forty years ago when he rode and tramped through it, and the intervening years have been a typical period of pioneer work—the building of road and railway, the cutting out of bush in a densely forested area, the breaking-in of land. To-day, when the last spike is driven in a job that has lasted for thirty years, neither the surveyor nor the engineer, the Public Works navvy (not forgetting his wife and children), nor the settler who Avent out into this remote district years ago, should be forgotten.

To-day's ceremony, however, has a still wider significance. It may be the last of its kind that New Zealand will witness, and the line stands as a monument to the unwisdom of our policy of construction. It has taken thirty years to build ninety miles of line, and difficult though the construction was over much of this distance, that is no excuse for such delay. The bad old system of building a large number of lines slowly, instead of a few quickly, got tyiis necessary connection in its grip. Had the line been built quickly the cost would have been much less and the capital sunk would have begun to earn sooner. As things turned out, this line of 89 miles has apparently cost about three millions, which works out at about £30,000 a mile. If these figures are correct, and they cannot be so far out as to affect the argument, there is very little hope of the line paying its way. A few years ago a high authority set £20,000 a mile as the economic limit of construction cost. The Railway Board in its first report estimated that even on £30,000 a mile —and some averages went as high as £76,000 —a net revenue of £1500 a mile would be necessary to make the financial position secure. Yet, so the Board went on to point out, the net revenue for Kbrth Island lines, after excluding the non-paying branch lines, was only £572, and for South Island lines only £294. It is probable that had the Stratford-Ongarue line not been so near to completion when the Board considered national railway construction last year, the Board would have included the line in its list of condemned. Even now the Board is counting upon its interests being protected by a pretty rigid application of the powers conferred by the Transport Licensing Act.

At to-day's feasfc this economic ghost that comes to trouble joy cannot be exorcised, but it will be kept well in the background. What occupies the thoughts of celebrants mainly is the completion of a national work that gives two neighbouring provinces a better connection, helps to open up a considerable area of farming country, and eases the task for the Railways Board in handling traffic. It is an occasion on which Auckland should shake hands with Taranaki and wish the best for future relations between the two communities.