RAILWAYS CONSTRUCTION

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 October 1931, Page 2

RAILWAYS CONSTRUCTION

NAPIER-WAIROA LINE [FEB PBESB ASSOCIATION.] WAIROA, October 2. A large meeting of the representatives of every local body in the Wairoa and district, and also the general public this afternoon entered an emphatic protest against the Railways Board’s recommendation that the Government should stop all work on the Napier-Wairoa Railway. The protest is made for the following reasons: — The Napier-Waikokopu section has already cost two and a-half millions, and it requires very little money to complete it. If it is stopped, these millions will be lost, and will become a charge on the National revenue. Let the Government assume it has’ been lost, and then the only capital charge against the Hne would. be the cost of completion. The present depression is no reason for the stoppage, as most of the cost to now complete the line would be for labour only, and the four hundred men who are already employed must be found work somewhere, should be allowed to complete the construction of this development railway. The railway lines should not be asked to pay as business undertakings but by way of country development, with a resultant increase in the national income. Other countries, such as Canada, have proved this. A special committee was set up to procure actual data bearing on the revenue and developmental prospects of the line between Napier and Wairoa, and to arrange a deputation from the district to go to Wellington.