NORTH ISLAND MAIN TRUNK RAILWAY.

Evening Post, Volume LVI, Issue 79, 30 September 1898, Page 6

NORTH ISLAND MAIN TRUNK RAILWAY.

TO THE EDl'i'Oß. ! Sir — Not only the Wellington public, but the whole of New Zealand, with the exception of a very seliibh section of the Auckland residents, heeni to bo strangely apathetic ou 5 this really great question. We hear now that the Minister for Railways lias at last i declared hiinselJ' in favour of thy Stratford \ route. It would bo inlerebtingto know how much the nearness of the next general ciecI lion has inilucnced this pronouncement. If : the people of the whole colony do not wake j up, and that quickly, they will do so when too latu to find that the greatest piece of political jobbery ever attempted' in New Zealiiiid Kaihwiys (not excepting thd Rimulakii line) lias become an accomplished fact during their blumbers. £ should not have lioubled .>ou upon this matter had -I not felt that I had soi*ie good ground for doing so. 1 have had the opportunity that has been denied to most— that is, to travel over both routes, and have also lived for some years in the heart of the island upon the l«md to be traversed by the Central route. The socilled facts put forth by many people both in and out of the House are, to say the least, very misleading to the public. The Central route does not pass through a long distance of pumice desert as asserted, but touches for a few miles the extreme edge of the pumice country, the rest of the route being chiefly through some of the finest land in New Zealand, and opening up by far the largest and most valuable block of totara forest left standing. On the other hand, the Stratford route does not, as asserted, run through a land of "milk at\d honej r ," but does run for very many miles through au absolutely worthless block of country, which is almost entirely composed of very broken ridges of a dry formation, covered chiefly with black birch and worthless scrub, and the engineering 3ifliculties are kuowu to be very great. With all dtie defereuce I maintain that any honest man of average ability going over both the proposed routes could only come to one conclusion, viz. — the one arrived at already by two Parliamentary Committee?, that the Central route is without comparison the better one. I am, &c, Bushman.

The vital" statistics for the month ending to-day were :— Births, 91 : deaths, 40 ; marriages, 48.