The Daily Southern Cross.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXII, Issue 2712, 27 March 1866, Page 4

The Daily Southern Cross.

LUCEO, NON X7RO. " If I have been extinguished, yet there riso A. thousand beacons from the spark I bore."

TUESDAY. MARCS 27.

The Auckland and Druvy Railway has given l'ise to long and profitless discussions of late. A good deal lias been said, and perhaps something also written, that had better been left unsaid and unwritten. But there is this to say in excuse, however, that the j)rovocation was very considerable. The acknowledged state of the works, and the very large expenditure of public money which it took to get them into their- present condition, together with the uncertainty regarding the sum needed to complete the line to Onehunga, were sufficient to provoke debate, even if the Railway Commissioners had been peaceably disposed. But the Commissioners appeared to be quite as keen for discussion as any one, and provoked some of the animadversions made upon them. It is not onr purpose, however, to revive these discussions. "Let " the dead Past bury its dead." Our duty is to endeavour to indicate that course which, in our opinion, would be the best to adopt at this juncture, rather than to keep alive the embers of discontent, and the memory of wrongs, real or imaginaiy. For this reason we refrain from entering on the engineering question. We are content to leave it as we find it, believing that anything we coidd write would not alter the facts, or in the least influence the opinion of competent judges, whose opinion alone is worth having. The report of the Commission of Inquiry is before the public ; so also is the reply of the railway engineers ; and we confess to our inability to decide the matter between them. The conclusion we have come to, after a careful perusal of the whole case, is this — that matters are not so bad as they might be. They might have been worse. Grateful for the very smallest of mercies, let us rest and be thankful The money is nearly all gone ; the works are what they are ; and if the province can raise the means to do it, the line must be completed as far as Onehunga. That, we believe, is the substance of the whole affair. The question now arises, however — What had better be done ? The right answer to this question is not so easily given. Opinions differ on this, as on all other points connected with the railway. Some would abandon the

works altogether, and bury the capital expended, without hope of future return. This plan, as we take it, would be unworthy of the province. Jt would not be wise to sink so large a sum as has been spent on the railway works, and leave the province chargeable for the interest and sinking fund. No doubt some prudent men advocate this course, but we think their judgment has not been deliberately formed, and has been come to rather from impulse than by the exercise of reason. Another courss suggested is to leave the works in such a forward state as will prevent their being injured during the winter, and then stop all expenditure for the present — that is, indefinitely. This, to our mind, is nearly as objectionable a ])roposal as to abandon the works altogether. It does neither one thing nor the other : it neither puts the province in the position of securiug a return for the outlay, nor of getting the railway well off its hands, which is a point that ought not to be lost sight of. "What, then, is to be done? The small contract system stands in the way of completing the line to Onehunga as a whole. This small contract system, which we protested against over and over again as an expensive affair to the province, and a dishonest s system as regarded the working men : this small contract system, which was introduced by the Commissioners, and on which they took their stand, and by which they have fallen, blocks the way against completing the line as a whole. The character of the work on each contract section differs. In some instances, the work is well forward to completion ; in others, it is in a backward state. This section is done according to specification; that is inferior in execution. One contractor can complete his contract in time ; another contractor cannot complete his at all. Such being the case, it is difficult to say what ought to be done. Looking at the advisability of opening the line of railway to Onehunga as [ early as possible, we say, as we have already said, let it be completed if it is within the means of the province : looking at the small contracts, and the state of the works, we are puzzled what to i*ecommend. It is quite clear that no one, having either money or reputation to lose, will take the condemned section off the hands of the Government. If the line to Onehunga had been one contract, the case would have.been different. There would be no difficulty in compelling the contractor and his sureties to complete the work, but the Commissioners have managed to get affairs into such a muddle that we, at least, do not see our way out of them, except at a very considerable sacrifice of pxiblic money. Whether section No. 1 can be completed with our present means, we do not pretend to say. We very much doubt it, however. It was our opinion from the first that the line ought to have started from Newmarket ; and when completed to Drury, and money could have been borrowed upon it, the most expensive section to the harbour might prudently have been undertaken. But the Commissioners knew better, and their engineers agreed with them. They would begin at the beginning. And so they did ; and the result justified our prediction that the money would not hold out. If the start had been made at Newmarket, the line might have been finished to Otahuhu this day ; but it was deemed a wiser thing to start at the harbour and construct a few miles of railway, which would not go far enough to open up any part of the country beyond an easy walk of the city, than to start at a point two miles from the harbour, and make a line to Drury, which would have monopolised the traific of a very wide district. Practically, it appears to us, that the idea of completing the first contract section ought to be abandoned at present. The remainder of the line from Newmarket to Onehunga might then be completed. Section No. 1 cannot, in any case, be finished this winter. Let the woi'k, therefore, be made secure until spring ; and. possibly, when the season suitable for resuming the work ai'rives, the Provincial Government may have been able to secure, the assistance of English capitalists to carry out the line to Waikato. In the meantime, the line opened between Onehunga and Newmarket would be something to offer in the shape of security to capitalists, which the works in an unfinished state throughout would not be. The province would also be able to see something in the shape of a return, if the line were cheaply and efficiently managed.