THE NORTH ISLAND CENTRAL RAILWAY.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 200, 7 August 1928, Page 8

THE NORTH ISLAND CENTRAL RAILWAY.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—A slight alteration was made by one of your staff to my last letter on the above subject. I stated that the Government of New Zealand could be depended upon to consider the matter from a cute angle. This it has since convincingly proved by squashing controversy of a critical kind in the bald stat ■'ment that the work having already been authorised had now been commenced! In his most recent statement to the Auckland Land Development League Mr. McLeod said;

“However, the Government was doing something to encourage settlement by degrees. The first step was the Taupo railway, which would tap Crown lands promising the greatest results at least cost.” I am sorry to learn that Mr. J. B. Campbell’s experience with this country has been that “it cannot be economically developed and settled,” but, in the first place, the conditions and costs have in the past been very difficult, and are to be remedied by my suggestions, and, in the second place, possibly your correspondent is not quite the man for the job. There is such a thing as a round peg in a square hole which exposes all the angles. If Mr. Campbell had called me in to advise him I might have been able to point out that his class of stock was quite unfit for a climate with an eighty-inch rainfall (perhaps even you were not aware of that fact Mr. Editor), and that no stock can be profitable which is expected to live on its kidney fat from the autumn to the spring—the result is heavy mortality and no clip I Sheep (and men) going from about Havelock to the Taupo Plains have to get acclimatised. Nelson Bros, found at Loch Inver that the Cheviot cross was the hardiest—possibly a CheviotCape cross would be the best and would clean up blackberry better than goats for I never saw a blackberry bush in Cape Colony or Bechuanaland where the Kalihara Desert is now being stocked owing to the brains of thinking men.

I don’t know Mr. J. fi. Campbell, but I take it that when I came to Hawke’s Bay he was either still on the bottle or in shorts. I was then young and healthy and I took up a section on Argyle which no one in New Zealand would have—it was costing the New Zealand Government 50/- a week for a caretaker who had all his dogs in the house. I announced to my neighbour, dear old Mickey Groome, that it was my .zitention to fatten lambs upon it—very fantastic! “Hah, hah, hah!” he laughed. “My word ‘Lane’ if you do you will be the first that ever id.” That year I got two trucks away—the next two thousand! I am quite certain that if Nature would allow me to have another innings I could win out on that Taupo country—say Loch Inver —for which the d Native Land Board doubled the rent when Nelson's lease expired and let in rabbits by the million, briar and blackberry. I don’t think your correspondent’s commercial aeroplane service would help me even if it did sprinkle showers of guano on Sundays as your leader writer suggested. I would rather depend on electrically propelled trucks from Napier bringing Nauru phosphate and black saline sludge which the Whakarire’s dredgemaster forgot to tell the Harbour Commission was vaised from a <Jepth of 36 feet by the Whakarire 1700 yards from the entrance to Port Ahuriri. I think I could put on a good mixture at the same cost the English farmer pays for, first-class super, viz., 55/per ton. Get your travelling corre- - spondent to ask Mr. Alf. Kirkham what first-class super costs him today at Taharua, the adjoining property! On the bit of Hawke’s Bay which I at present have the luck to farm—--2000 acres Homestead Block—a previous owner of Kiwi lost £BO,OOO, and I suppose he got the 30,000 acres for about £2 per acre. I paid £l4 per acre 13 years ago and last year I was fortunate’ enough to make 10 per cent on £2l per acre—this year it looks like 15 per cent, on £2l per acre. I didn't seek to buy Kiwi myself—l had sold it as agent for Chambers Bros, to a poor “waak” who signed up one night and nearly blubbed next morning at the idea of putting up the deposit. We let him off. and to prove my honesty and ability I took on the place myself. I am still here. Seventy years ago the late Mr. J. N. Williams, of Frimley. had visitors from the South Island looking for land (so he said in his little pamphlet “Permanent Pastures”). He took them to a vantage point and showed them the swamp, fern, and manuka. They said, “We don’t think much of Hawke’s Bay!” and returned to the South Island.

To-day, if visitors came and Mr. J, B. Campbell took them to the same spot and looked over Hawke’s Bay and said. “All tins I give unto you if you fall down and worship Mammon,” what a rush there would be. But two per cent, would get greater pleasure breaking in the Taupo country—it’s a man’s job! And it is not “Too Soon” Vo find out who are the best men for it. A lot will fail—have failed—but here and there a man of real pioneer stamp will succeed and the others, cannot do better than pattern by him. I am p-lad to see that Mr. Lysnar now thinks it will be quite all right, vide “Auckland Weekly.” I am a constituent of his and he must have read the “Tribune,” and have been scared by what I said about him. —Yours etc., EUSTACE LANE. Kiwi, 5/8/28.