The Star. [PUBLISHED DAILY] THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 1893. THE AUCKLAND RAILWAY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XX, Issue 2460, 22 June 1893, Page 2

The Star. [PUBLISHED DAILY] THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 1893. THE AUCKLAND RAILWAY.

As a telegram published the other day showed, the Auckland members before leaving for Wellington met representatives of various bodies, and it was urged upon them that this session they should push on the claim for road and railway connection between Auckland and Taranaki. By a report in an Auckland paper we learn that Mr McMillan especially urged the advisability of getting the dray road from the upper Waikato to Taranaki completed; and that everything should be done to alter the present isolation from the rest of the colony in which Auckland lay. He took occasion to say that he was against further borrowing " except under circumstances which rendered it absolutely necessary that a sufficient sum of money should be raised for the purpose of carrying on the Auckland-Taranaki railway." This is a naive position to take up, and we can fancy the Otago, the Wellington, and" the Canterbury members taking up a precisely similar position in respect of works which they are anxious for. But this was capped by Mr Shera, who had a "• scheme" which he guaranteed " would be fouud satisfactory for the purpose of raising money to complete the Stratford railway." A scheme which is guaranteed to satisfy is excellent, were there not some" doubt as to whom it would satisfy. Mr Shera proposes to raise a million of money for the railway without allocating a single acre of land or adding one shilling to the debt of the colony, and so far all parts of the cclony would go with him. Unfortunately, when unfolded, the scheme is not very practicable. Shortly stated it is that the balance of a loan of 1870, guaranteed by the Imperial Government, amounting to some £800,000, should now be issued at _ per cent, and as it would realise 25 per cent premium there the money would be. If Mr Shera can get the Treasurer to adopt that scheme he is a cleverer man than we take him to be. These £800,000 guaranteed debentures, it we do not mistake, form a sort of sheet anchor to colonial finance. We are not sure that they are not now under some sort of pledge to the Bank of England in exchange for some concession ; but, however that may be, time and again they have been the last reserve rested on when a financial difficulty arose. To suppose that the Government or Parliament would issue and sell these under any circumstances is not easy; to urge that they might be drawn upon for a particular public work is to take up a line of argument which rather argues madness on the part of the proposer. We have no doubt that the Auckland and Taranaki members will do all in their power to push the claims of the two districts for consideration in this matter of railway or road connection, aud we hope they will succeed, but frankly we expect but little from Buch schemes as those put forward by the gentlemen who met the other day. However, election time is coming on, and " schemes " of various kinds are to be expected.