PRIORITY CLAIM

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 67, 16 September 1922, Page 11

PRIORITY CLAIM

GISBORNE AND THE RIMUTAKA ' . . . ..PLAN. . ' ;. -„ ..' The Gishorne Chamber of Commerce has taken exception to the effort to hive the Rimutaka deviation work being given inriority over .the Gisborne-Napiei section, says the "Gisborne Times." Thesecretary of the Chamber _ has sent the following letter to the Minister of Public Works and the members for the district: "A circular letter has been received from, the Masterton Chamber of Commerce stating that a deputation is to wait upon the Government at Wellington to .urge the necessity and importance of making an easy grade deviation of the present railway line over the Rimutaka ranges. The circular claims that 'this work is of national importance. I have been instructed by my Chamber to most emphatically and respectfully protest against *ny expenditure of large sums on , the \ line in question or any other existing lines, until such 'time as the fertile oountry of Poverty Bay receives its just rights and is connected up with'the railway system of the_ Dominion. If,any line could rightly claim to be of national importance, it surely would; be the East Coast main trunk,' a linel that will tap country unequalled in New Zealand, • and a country which assists in swelling the Consolidated Fund proportionately greater than any other part of the Dominion. My Chamber earnestly trusts that you will respectfully defer, the request of the deputation in question until same future time. The Masterton ' district has a line, the Poverty Bay district has none."