HOW SOME LOANS AEE SPENT.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 3084, 26 March 1892, Page 2

HOW SOME LOANS AEE SPENT.

We mentioned tbe other day that Mr. Lawry, M.H.R., had denounced the Porootaroa tunnel as a monument of folly. The special of the Auckland Weekly News gives the following interesting figures :— " Those who have watched the course of events in connection with our public works policy will remember that about 1885 one Colonial Treasurer declared 1 that he would have railway communication between Auckland and Wellington completed within five years from tbat time,' and as it would take from three to four years to complete the tunnel indicated, it was necessary to start its construotion 24 miles ahead of the end of the railway construction, which at that time did not extend beyond Te Kuiti. This tunnel has now been completed since 1887; it cost £60,000 to construct, and when the present section of railway now being made ia completed , the tunnel will still be 10 miles beyond it. Taking the £60,000 at 5 per cent., it will be seen tbat this monument ot folly ia costing the country three thousand par annum. Thus it has cost about £15,000 in interest, and unless we are prepared to go in for another policy of borrowing it will cost £21,000 more before the railway is made up to it. At the present time it is used for packhorses to go through, and it simply stands as a record of waste and extravagance, for which the country has to pay the Bum I have stated.