(To the Editor, Inangahua Times.)

Inangahua Times, Volume IX, Issue 1423, 28 July 1884, Page 2

(To the Editor, Inangahua Times.)

Sir. — Now that the moral of the election is past, permit inn to draw attention to a matter of the very highest importance to the entire Coast. I need scarcely say I refer to the West Coast Railway, as it has been called. It is very evident from the sweeping changes tliat have taken place, a very host of duffers having her sacrificed, and from the character and reputation of the men who now constitute the House of Representatives that things in general must take a new departure. It is needless for me to waste time discussing the advantages of the East and West Coast Railway. Suffice it to say that the people in Canterbury are fully alive to the necessity of the enterprise, so much so as to have made it a test question in dealing with candidates for election. Sir Julius Yogel is fully alive to the necessity of its construction, and many others of smaller dimensions are of the same opinion. Indeed when one thinks of the matter in the lijrht of the reciprocal advantages to be derived by both sides of the Island, and particularly the immense impetus it must give to the Coast, it is truly astonishing that the matter should have been so long neglected. We have here a population of between sixteen and seventeen thousand souls, paying most extravagant prices for ever/ article of food and clothing, almost within hail of Christchurch, in comparison to where they are sending their produce to find a market. Into this matter Ido not propose to enter, but I would suggest that now when people from outside our borders, anxious to assist in delivering us from this miserable ißoUtion to which the West Coast has been condemned, let us bestir ourselves and get up a monster petition to the House to devise im-ans for the completion of this invaluable line. If I the Railway League were ever in earnest now is their time to do the Coast real service, by initiating at once a petition for presentation to the assembly of the House. There is not the slightest doubt but that money will Vie borrowed, and it ia certain that it will be borrowed, as Yogel said at Ashburton, not for the sake of expenditure, but for reproductive works. Foremost, or at least among the first reproductive works, is surely to connect a settlement numbering 16,000 souls, in a country totally unsuited to yield anything in the shape of agricultural produce, with a main centre containing rich agricultural land, and yielding all the necessaries of life in superabundance. The West Coast Railway will do that, and in consideration thereof it becomes a matter of greater importance to the Colony generally than even the Otago Central line, about which we hear so much. The latter is a railway to nowhere — the former to sixteen thousand hungry mouths to be fed. If a schedule of works of a particular kind be drawn up and we find such lines as " Auckland to Wellington " The Otago Central, etc. etc. mentioned there in, and if we neglect the present opportunity of pushing by petition the paramount claims of the West Coast line we are false to our position, and unworthy of the noble district we inhabit. T would therefore suggest for the consideration of the Railway League the extreme advisability of at once setting on foot a petition for the above work. Circumstances conducive to success are all in their grasp, and equally favorable circumstances may not soon occur aijain. It might also be taken up by the County Councils on the Coast, and also as an incentive to our new mem ber 3to interest themselves in it ; it may be observed that this is a subject readymade, success in which would dub the pHlebrant patriot politician for life. Trusting that something will b« done. I am &c, An Elector.