SOUTH WESTLAND RAILWAY

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24370, 23 September 1944, Page 8

SOUTH WESTLAND RAILWAY

♦ RESIDENTS SEEK EXTENSION

PETITION TO PARLIAMENT

(From Our Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, September 22. The petition from South Westland residents for the extension of the railway came before the House of Representatives to-day, when, the M to Z Petitions Committee presented its report. The committee recommended that the petition be referred to the Government for consideration and investigation. Because the House was to go into Committee of Supply the debate was adjourned after the member for the district, the Hon. J. O’Brien, had spoken. Mr O’Brien thanked the committee for its recommendation, which was the best that could be made in the circumstances. Not only residents, but all visitors to South Westland, had been impressed with the beauty and resources of the area, he said. The railway was not a new idea, because provision .was made in the estimates of 1911, but the project was dropped. South Westland was the timber storehouse of New Zealand, and most of which must come out on a railway if it were to come out at all. The area also had vast potentialities for the generation of electricity. Mr Coates and members of the present Government had been enthusiastic about the development of the district, the people of which had made many representations for a railway. Mr O’Brien said Mr Savage had set up a committee of heads of departments in 1936 to report on the possibility of extending the railway. That committee had presented an extraordinary report, which he could not understand. The committee had said the land was unsuitable for farming and could not be economically developed, but its members could not have seen some of the farms in the district. The committee's estimates of the timber conflicted with those of other experts. The committee had said there was unlikely to be an increase in population, but the population had increased by *SO per cent, between one census and the next.

After considering the question of a light railway recommended by the then general manager, who now represented Masterton in the House, the committee had suggested the provision of a special road. Mr O’Brien suggested that the cost of maintenance would make the road just as costly as a railway. It might have been that the committee expected road transport to supersede rail transport. The committee had reported tli I the road freight charge between Wataroa and Greymouth was 5s 9d, that it could be reduced to 5s if the special road were built, and that it would be 7s lOd by rail; but the rail freight at that time for the same distance was 4s Id, and was now 4s 6d. The Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser) said he understood that Mr Mackley wished to speak on this petition. and moved that the debate on it be adjourned. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr S. G. Holland) asked if the report of the committee to which Mr O’Brien had referred could be tabled or made available to members. Mr Fraser said he would inquire into this.