RAILWAY POLICY

Evening Star, Issue 20193, 5 June 1929, Page 8

RAILWAY POLICY

SOUTH ISLAND MAIN TRUNK AH AUCKLAND DEPUTATION j. PREMIER'S EMPHATIC ANSWER f [Per United Press Association.! AUCKLAND, d;mo 5. 1 Replying to a deputation from tho .Chamber of Commerce which urged that the Rarmissus-Wharahui gap in. the South Island Main Trunk Railway should not bo completed without a thorough investigation in the light of modern conditions and developments, Sir Joseph Ward said: “Unless we stop railways altogether there is nothing in the world to prevent the completion of this Hue. From a policy point of view it is ilie only line in New Zealand that should be finished.”

Mr Merritt, president of the Chamber of Commerce, remarked that the Fay-Casoy report had shown that the line should not h© built.

Sir Joseph: Tho Fay-Haven report, and not the one to which you refer, is the one upon which Cabinet,has based its decision. Sir Sa'rn Fay and Sir Vincent Haven recommended that this line should be completed after they had made a thorough investigation on the occasion of their special visit in 1924. “So far as I am concerned, I intend to ignore the Fay-Casoy report entirely.” It would not be an economic proposition to have the present gap. The last Government undertook to complete it, and the present Government had undertaken to do it, and a commission had reported favourably. What more was wanted ?