25 YEARS AGO

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 93, 14 January 1936, Page 8

25 YEARS AGO

South Island Main Trunk (Krom “The Dominion,” January 13, 1911.) There is a growing feeling in Blenheim that some very great pressure will be required to be brought to bear upon the Government before the South Island Main Trunk line is pushed on more vigor ously. The people are not asked to agree that the line is tlie most important in the Dominion. What the people of Marlborough and Canterbury' want is the Government to redeem the promises made by the late Mr. Seddou, by Sir William Hall-Jones, and by Sir Joseph Ward, that after the completion of the North Island Main Trunk line the southern trunk would be vigorously pushed on until the ends were joined. Performance sti'l linips haltingly after promise, and in the meantime other lines —local lines many o f —are being rapidly constructed.

The New York Stock Exchange has been ditKussing the pessimistic utterances of Mr. J. J. Hill, the “railway king,” who predicts that the United States, and indeed the whole world, is about to harvest the fruits of undue extravagance. “When I told President. Taft a few days ago." eaid Mr. Hill, “that there would be many thousands of men thrown into idleness next year, he was incredulous. But I was not making a guess. It is a fact.”

Employers complain of a dearth of boys, and wholesale and retail merchants and manufacturers alike have racked their brains and exhausted the possibilities of the advertising columns in ar endeavour to get out of their difficulties, but all in vain.