RAILWAYS: WAIRARAPA AND HUTT

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 76, 31 March 1922, Page 6

RAILWAYS: WAIRARAPA AND HUTT

It is satisfactory to see that Mr. Daniell and his colleagues of the Masterton Chamber of Commerce are pressing for information concerning the Rimutaka railway deviation surveys. Surely it is time that the surveys arrived somewhere, and that. the Government proclaim the route that it considers ito be required in the public interest. As long as there is an unfinished survey and a route quarrel, so long will the Government be able to defeat all efforts to have the railway deviation placed upon the urgent list. The united efforts of the Wairarapa and Wellington Chambers of Commerce, and of the Central Progress League, also the local bodies, will be needed' in the fight against local disunity and political shirk. The usual financial objection to getting something done does not apply, because the immediate issue is not the railway but the route thereof. The route question must be forced not only in the interests of through traffic, but also in order to clear the way for a definite policy of railway construction in the Hutt Valley,. Railway construction between' the two Hutts is directly affected by the question whether the main Wairarapa route is to be via Upper Hutt or via Petone and the Wai-linui-o-mata. ' '