OUR OWN RESOURCES

Hokitika Guardian, 26 August 1929, Page 8

OUR OWN RESOURCES

(From an Exchange). A southern newspaper correspondent views the railways versus motor roads controversy from a new angle and the point iie makes is important. It is ciiieliy the matter of fuel. Motor vehicles of all kinds, lie reminds us, depend wholly on imported petrol and oil, whereas our railways can be made to operate entirely on our own fuel resources. A little steam coal is imported from Australia, but if wo were entirely cut off' from communication with outside world our trains would keep on running, whereas the hundred thousand or so motor cars and lorries in the country would very soon exhaust tue stored supplies. Moreover, most of the railway plant is manufactured locally] this cannot, of course, be said of the motor cars. New Zealand would suffer but slightly from a complete stoppage of motor car and fuel .importations, in fact we would be all the better for it financially, but we would have the railway service unimpaired. This is a perfectly correct viewpoint. There is always the risk of war, though let us hope such a disaster may he averted. Even if the British Empire were not directly involved, the supply of motor fuel would be affected. We are dependent, chiefly on foreigners 1.. W our -supplies. Even when a cargo comes from non-American sources it is as often as not carried in a foreign ship. An oil ship which brought a cargo from Borneo to Wellington lately was a Norwegian vessel with a Chinees crew. Bnt our coal we have always with us. This consideration, it must ho remembered ,applies to our tramways also. The liKnor Inis may he here today and gone to-morrow. Its usefulnes depends entirely on imported fuel. With the completion of our great hydro-electric supply works the tramways throughout the country are operated entirely on our own resources. It is surely.) short-sighted policy to talk of pulling up tramways and substituting motor bus services. Both have their spheres of usefulness; the mobile bus is' an exceedingly convenient auxiliary; to the permanent tram service.- But in time of emergency, such ns an interruption in our overseas services, the railway and the clectrie tram would he our steady, dependable self-contained means of communication. ' ' —Tangiwai.