THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 59, 13 March 1929, Page 8

THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS

All over the world people are looking twice, or thrice, or even four times before laying new rail tracks. Railway propositions, whether new lines or extensions, are being subjected to the keenest inquiries before being authorised, and only 'the fittest of these propositions are considered to bo worthy to survive. There is, of course, room for a good deal of difference of opinion, and it is not for laymen to compare two projects merely on a surface examination; it is, however, quite in order for laymen to seek reasoned explanations from those authorities who undertake to make decisions, and the Government's decision to stop the Taupo railway and to carry on the Buller Gorge railway is a case in point. The stopping of both would have been much more understandable than the acceptance of the latter and the rejection of the former. We do not suggest'that there has been political discrimination, but, we think that, to counter any such suggestion, the Government should compile a review of the railway works severally and jointly, and explain why one is taken and the other left. In any case, quite apart from any suggestion of party interest, and treating the subject as a purely economic one, the country is entitled to know just why the Government has decided to pay Peter and to pay off Paul. If the pumice land traffic is a motor proposition, why is the Buller Gorge traffic anything else? And if the Taupo line, with a quite fair amount of backing in recent official reports, is not worth going on with, what evidence is there to support the prosecution of other railway works which within living memory have not been specially reported on at Bill