THE MIDLAND RAILWAY.

Evening Star, Issue 7354, 28 October 1887, Page 2

THE MIDLAND RAILWAY.

[Feom Cub Own Cobbesfondknx.]

WELLINGTON, Ootobbb 28.

The negotiations re the Midland Railway difficulty have been satisfactorily arranged, and Mr Alan Scott, chairman of the Bailway Company, has returned to Christchurch. The • Evening Press' saya if the Midland Railway question is a tramp card in anybody's hands, it is in the hands of the Government, but the real troth is that it is not a party question at all. It is wholly a question of administration which any Government in office must dispose of. The only difference between the new Government and the late one with regard to it is that whereas the late Government made two attempts to pat it on a practicable basis, and totally. failed, the firesent Government can be depended on at east to do what has to be done in a busi-ness-like manner. There is really no very serious difficulty at all; that is to say, the Government and the Company are equally anxious to arrange a basis upon which the Midland Railway may be constructed strictly in accordance with the spirit of the Act of 1884. The chief ortlieonly obstacle to thatis the Goldfields Act. It is recognised on all hands that the mining rights must not be restricted. Not only have the Company no desire to exclude the miners from »ny locality where gold may be found, but it is of the very essence of the success of their scheme that mining should be encouraged as much as possible. What they ask in effect, then, is that if any of their land is required for mining purposes _ they sball receive land -elsewhere equivalent in area to that taken, and the problem which the Government have to solve is where to find land which can be definitely set apart for that object There are other points to be settled, especially for enabling the Company to acquire an actual property in their land grant, block by block, as they become entitled to it, so that financing may be facilitated and settlement may progress; but they ask for nothing,' as far as we can see, which should be objected to on Eublic grounds, and we have every ope that the Government will be able to submit proposals to Parliament at an early date which will be entirely satisfactory to all concerned. This will be done in the ordinary way of departmental business, and without the introduction of any party feeling or any politics! element whatever.