RIMUTAKA DEVIATION

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 111, 11 May 1923, Page 3

RIMUTAKA DEVIATION

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir.—l regret that your reference to my interview, in 1919 should appear to %iffle the Minister; the suggestion was not intended to disparage anyone. The main point, however, seems to have been missed. When asked my opinion in 1919 about the various new routes,.for deviation which were propounded, it. seemed as if we. had, like Moses, beea wandering for forty years in the. wilde#.iess and failed still to "get there." and I suggested that the direct routs might be found cheapest, but added that the Government officers who had command of data, would be able to determine If it was so. There was nothing original in suggesting Mangarqa as the starting point, and cutting out Kaitoke. The Kaitoke detour wais constructed instead of the shortest line, because ifc was the cheapest, Sir Julius Vogel'a pojicy compelling this courie. It is forty years since I asked, the then Engineer-in-Chief if this could be reconsidered; his reply was that it had been fully considered originally, and that he did not think that financial conditions would allow of it being reconsidered then. The idea was a matter of ancient hiitory I can realise that the Public Works officers may not have noticed your report of my interview, and that they have instinctively followed the course which others have desired to do before them. I think it is a subject for the most heavty congratulation that they appear to have arrived- at so good a solution.

The Kaitoke detour and Fell. incline were the outcome of Vogel's policy, who hoped to build 1000 miles of railway for five millions. It was a case of'having cheaply-constructed railways • or-, none; and at this date probably no one doubts thaiJhe poiicy was a good one" to start on, though there is still room for improvements.

As regards the 1 in 35, I had in my mind the grade from Upper Hutt to Mangaroa, which used to be somewhat worse than this, and possibly still is so. I had no d»ia as to possibilities, but ■was inspired with a pious desire to avoid anything worse than this. As it most happily turns out, no such "diflj: culty is expected. If the Upper Hutt incline still exists we may also venture on to hope for its amendment.—l am, etc., • .-■

J. "MAXWELL,

JOtii May.