OTIRA TUNNEL.

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 July 1916, Page 6

OTIRA TUNNEL.

MUST BE FINISHED.

ROADS AND BRIDGES, r

PUBLIC WORKS ESTIMATES,

{Our Parliamentary Reporter.]

WELLINGTON, This Day,

When the House went into committee on the Public Works Estimates last evening, the Hon. W. Fraser explained that the Estimates contained simply the unexpended balances of last year’s-votes, because he had no money available for new works. That being the case he had to &o how he could meet local bodies with contingencies necessitating certain, expenditure. The only way he could "see of doing so was to take power by which money might .be expended on works not referred to in the Estimates by the elimination from the Estimates of certain other works not so urgently required and , which could stand over. In order to arrange this it was his intention shortly, after Parliament rose to arrange with the various County Councils to meet him at certain places in order to determine what-votes could be dispensed with for the time being, and to what jvorks they would like, to have the votes transferred. There would only be about £420,000 available this year for roads and bridges. The Hon. Mr Herdman pleaded strongly for a big scheme of backblocks reading. Ho thought a big loan for such a purpose was not only desirable from a humanitarian viewpoint, but would be a good payable proposition. Mr Webb urged a development policy financed by a stiff tax on the lands served by the new lines. ' ‘ The ' discussion took the usual course of members urging their local needs. Answering the criticism that East Coast railways had been starved, the Minister said that last year £132,738 had been .expended on the Waihi, Tauranga, Gisborne Motu and the Gisborne-Napier sections. This year’s allocations on the same lines totalled £IOI,OOO. The Otira tunnel came in for criticism. Mr Pearce declared that the money spent on the tunnel had been wasted. The population on the West Coast, he said, was decreasing, and no advantage would be pained by completing the tunnel as coal could be freighted to_ Lyttelton cheaper than by rail, while passengers easily made the complete journey in a day.

Mr Field Protested atm ins t the reduction from £15.000 to £7OOO of the amount for the Nelson end of the Midland' Railway. If every other part of the country had been similarly treated c he "could not complain, but Nelson had been more severely, cut down. , The'Minister of Public Works assured the critics of the Otira -.tunnel that they were only wasting time. The work bad , Wn begun and would have to be finished.