THE CHRISTCHURCHBLENHEIM RAILWAY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVIII, Issue 13001, 17 December 1902, Page 8

THE CHRISTCHURCHBLENHEIM RAILWAY.

OPENING OF THE ‘WAIPARA-SCAR-GILL SECTION. A SUCCESSFUL FUNCTION. Little over tln-ce years ago, at a meeting held in the M’Kenzie township at Cheviot, at which the Hon W. C. Walker reprcmited the Government, and the Hon W. Rolleeton was present, resolutions were passed urging on the Government the absolute necessity of connecting Cheviot with Christchurch by railway, not only for the sake of the settlement, hut also .in the interests of the Christchurch trade. The matter , was taken up by the Government at once, with the result that on March 28, 1900, the first sod of the new line was turned at Waipara, and on April 3 work, commenced in earnest. It has progressed steadily, and yesterday the first section of nearly fifteen miles, from Waipara to Scargill, was officially opened in the presence of a large number of people, many of whom came from Christchurch. i It was announced by the Minister of Public Works at yesterday’s function that within fifteen months the line would be completed for a sufficient distance to allow of goods and -passengers being conveyed from the portion of Cheviot at the Hurunui. traffic bridge to Christchurch. The piece of line opmed yesterday passes through the well-known Glemnark estate, and those who went up by the train were astonished at the• fertility of this country, and at the progress made by the settlers, who tooki up port-ions of it less than throe jems ago. Most of the land which was sold by Mr G. H. Moore for closer settlement is now under crop, and the growing corn, rape and turnips are all in splendid condition, and give promise of excellent yields, ihe station buildings at Omihi, tlvci first station from Waipara, are commodious and substantial, while those at Scargill, which include a large good-shed, are as good as any in the-North Canterbury district. _ The heavy rain which fell in Christchurch yesterday morning doubtless prevented many excursionists from joining the first train to Scargill, hut, in spite of the ’ weather, the special train which conveyed the Premier, the Minister for luhlic Works, the Minister for Education, and many representative citizens of Christchurch, took away about four hundred excursionists, and, with those picked up at wayside stations, by the time Scargill was reached the number was increased to about 800. A number of people came down from Cheviot and the intermediate districts, and by the time the. opening ceremony-was performed there were over a thousand persons present. Upon the train arriving at Scargill, it; was found that the railway station and yard were raily bedecked with bunting, and whe,n the train drew up at the- station, the Ministers were received by Mr A. W. Rutherford, member in Parliament for Hurunui, and other representative settlers, and escorted to the platform in front of the • goods-shed, where the Hon W. Hall-Jones, •. Minister of Public Works, declared the line open, and addresses were given by the Premier, the Minister of Education, and others. At the conclusion of the address* ies, the Ministerial party, numbering about’ forty, was. entertained at luncheon by Mr Rutherford, when the health of the Premier was proposed by Mr Rutherford, and the ■ ■ health, of Mr Rutherford was proposed by ■ the Premier. The Ministerial train left for town about three o’clock, and, at the invitation of Mr J. Daly, Mayor of Kaiapoi, th o Premier paid a short visit to that town. During their stay, the party was conducted over the Kaiapoi Woollen Mills by Mr G. H. ' Blackwell, the general manager, and after* . wards visited the Queen’s Monument, in Darnley Square, and the new swimming Baths. The Premier was afterwards shown the Post and Telegraph Office, which he declared to be quite out of date, and he ■ promised .to see what could be done in the ; way of providing a structure more in keep- ■ ing with the importance of the township. . He also, inspected the Kaiapoi railway station, and said that he was glad to know that it would soon he replaced with an up-to-date structure. _ A short stop was made at Belfast, at the request of the member for Kiccarton, who brought under the notice of the Premier the inadequacy of the present . station buildings to the requirements of the district, and Mr Seddon promised to - bring the matter under the notice of the ■ Minister' of Railways. The train then proceeded to town, and in the evening the Ministers left for Wellington by the R’otomahana. Amongst the visitors were Mr A. H. Turnbull, President of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, Messrs T. H. Da-vey, G. Lanrenson, G. Witty and D. Buddo, M.H.R.’s, Captain'Kidley, of the Gothic, Mr I. Gibbs, manager of the New Zealand Shipping Company, _ Mr J. Vaughan, president of the Cheviot Settlers’ Association, Sir G. Clifford, and many leading citizens of Christchurch. The Stanmore Band went up by tbe train and enlivened the proceedings by its playing. Pipe-Major M’Kenzie, of the Scottish Society, also joined the party, and came back with the Ministerial party, and played them through Kaiapoi. Before leaving Scargill the Minister -of Public Works gave instructions to Mr Wilson, the engineer in charge, to work double shifts on the heavv block cuttings between Scargill and the tlurunui, in order to expedite the work.

THE SPEECHES AT SCARGILL. Mr A. W. Rutherford, member for Hururui, who opened the proceedings, and who acted as chairman throughout, welcomed the excursionists to Scargill. Ho could not, he said’, allow the opportunity to pass without bringing before the notice of the Ministers present the further extension of the railway. Some three years ago he had tho pleasure of presiding at the banquet tendered to the Minister at Waipara on the

turning of the first sod of the railway, and at that time some thought the railway would be carried through to,Cheviot immediately. He thought, however, they should be fairly well satisfied with what the Ministry had done. Some of the cooperative workers had figured it out that there was not sufficient money allocated for the railway to carry them on till the next financial year. (Mr Hall-Jones:. “Isn’t there.”) If there was not sufficient money to employ the whole of the labourers on the line, about 155, some of them should' be kept at work on the two big block cubbings. They bad not been able, somehowl other, to interest the Canterbury people fa their railway, and it appeared to him that as soon as a man got his own railway he became conservative, and did not want ' money spent on other lines, but began to talk about 'Betterment Bills, and all that sort of thing. Mr Rutherford then read apologies for absence from Dir H. F. Wigram (Mayor of Christchurch) and Mr A. Kaye (chairman of the Lyttelton Harbour Board). The Hon W. Hall-Jones, who was received with applause, said it only seemed the other day that he turned the first sod in •Waipara, and he made a good job of it., (Laughter.) Ho was not slow about bis part of it, and now, some two and a lialli years afterwards, they bad come to celebrate the opening of the first section. When he asked them to consider the heavy work that had to be done on the section, he asked them had not the Government made fair progress? He wished to see as good progress maintained, if not btfeer, with the line further ahead. It was very fitting that they should be celebrating the opening of that first section on Anniversary Day, for it was the energy, the enterprise, .and the push of the early settlers, and those who came after them, that had placed l Canterbury in the proud position it occupied at the present time. He quoted figures with regard to. some of the

chief exports, which showed the position that Canterbury occupied as compared with the rest of the. colony. The figures were those for the year ending March 31, 1802. The export of wheat from Canterbury alone amounted to 1,812,697 bushels, and from the rest of the colony only 152,226 bushels. Southland and Otago were looked upon as the chief oat-producing provinces, but Canterbury had held her own, and out of 8,587,487 bushels of oats exported from the colony, no less than 4,202,996 bushels came from Canterbury. Of barley, 75,931 bushels had been exported from Canterbury, and 48,441 from the rest of the colony. Canterbury had exported 52,533 bushels of malt, and the rest of the colony ' 47,830. Other figures were : —Grass seed, Canterbury 36,902 cwt, rest of the colony 15,492 cwt; Hour, Canterbury, 332 tons, rest ol the colony 472 tons; potatoes, Canterbury 22,068 tons, rest of the colony 855 tons; onions, Canterbury 24,997 cwt, rest of the colony 5821 cwt. In daily produce exports, Canterbury already occupied the fifth place. In frozen mutton, as many ns 3,349,715 carcases altogether had been exported from the colony, and of this number 1,788,541 came from Canterbury. So it went on until they came down to one of the latest industries, that of the poultry export. That was going to be a big thing, and it would be well for many of them if they devoted more attention- to that industry. ~ Of the total of 38,785 head of poultry exported for the year, no less than 21,275 were- exported from Canterbury. (Applause.) That would l give an idea of what Canterbury had done in the past, and what it would do in tho future. The present year was going to ho a. record year, and the settlers must he provided with facilities for carrying their produce to market. If that was not done the colony would not go ahead as it ought to -do. The railway had long been spoken of, and that day the first fifteen miles of it was opened. In- place- of paying off men, he had- before ho left Wellington given instructions for the number of men to bo increased, and instead of 150 men, there would within a day or two he. 250 employed on the line. (Applause.) Tho reason for the temporary stoppage of the work last year was because all the money had been- spent that was voted by Parliament, but now Parliament bad keen good enough to provide sufficient funds to enable good progress to- he made, and he hoped during the summer months to see excellent progress made between Scargill and the other side of the Hurunui, for he recognised it was of the utmost importance that the line should he carried to the other side of tho river. If it was going to take two years to make a- cutting, they had only to get double the number of men to make it in one year. They could take advantage of the long days during the present summer, and work two gangs, and so -do the work in very much less lime than had been estimated. (Hear, hear.) Tho work had been done entirely on the cooperative system, and he was proud of the men that had been working on the line. The men had been maligned by those who could not understand the system. The system was -a good and fair one, and- it enabled good men to earn good wages. The distance from - Scargill to Waipara. was fourteen miles thirty-eight chains, -and the cost up to date had been £73,108. That worked out- at just a little under £SOOO per mile, and when he told them that the average cost of the New Zealand railways righc through had been £BOOO per mile, he said at was a compliment to those men who bad worked on the Waipara-Scargill line, and a compliment to the co-operative system. His friend Mr Rutherford wanted to know when they were going to reach the other side of the river. The contracts were let for the Hurunui Bridge, and the estimated cost was just over £BOOO, and the contract time was up on May 30, 1904. IVhen the bridge was completed he hoped to be -in a position to run the train right through to the Cheviot Estate. That was only one more winter to get through, and before the next winter he hoped, that Cheviot would bo connected with the railway. The work ahead was more arduous than what had been done, and the- estimated cost of that work ran something over £9OOO per mile. He trusted that within the next eighteen months to- bo with them in opening* the section across the Hurunui River. It was his pleasing duty to declare the Waipara-Scargill section of railway open, and he would ask them to give three cheers for - the success of the section.

The cheers, led by Mr Hall-Jones, were heartily given. The Premier was the next speaker, and his rising was the signal for loud cheering and applause. ' They had met that day, he said, to celebrate the opening; of tho first section of the Waipara-Blenheim railway, or it ought to be, the North and South Island) connection of the main trunk lino railway. Tho connection between Auckland and Wellington, had, in his opinion, been unduly deferred, and when they recollected the time that the trunk line of railway had been completed between Christchurch and Dunedin they would agree with him that Wellington and Auckland Lad as much right to bo connected as Christchurch and Dunedin, and it was in the interests of the whole of tho colony that that connection should be made. If, therefore, it was agreed that there should be that connection, then there should be the connection between Blenheim and Christchurch. He quite agreed with what Mr Rutherford bad said, that when people get what they desired in the way of facilities for intercourse, they became conservative and did not want others to get anything. His colleague had told them that there was to he an increased number of men employed on that railway; lie might say that throughout the railway works in 'New Zealand, for the balance of the financial year there would bo an increase of 2000 men employed. (Hear, hear.) That ■would gladden tho hearts of a good many of tho workers, but ho did nob know that it would gladden tho hearts of some of the fanners. In respect to its public works expenditure, Canterbury had a very strong claim upon the Government, because it had really sent to Parliament nothing but Government supporters, and it would bo the height of ingratitude if the Government did not take that into consideration. That was always tho case, notwithstanding tho fact that there were some people who would have the audacity to stand before the public and say they did nob take that into consideration. It was, much better to state boldly that where there was a united people prepared to help themselves, and who were progressive and prepared to help a progressive Government, if the Government did not hear in mind their requirements, then it was no longer lit to be a Government} The Midland Railway works should 'he pushed on, and there ought to bo a larger expenditure upon that line. Now that the question was settled as to how tho Otirai ranges were to be crossed, he would impress upon them, as a matter of policy on tho part of the Government, that the Minister for Public Works would, with all expedition, make that connection, and at all events get through that piece of railway from Springfield to the Cass Road, in order to shorten tho journey between the West Coast and Canterbury. If it had not been for the manner the country was humbugged by the Midland Railway Company, that railway would have, been completed long ago. Another railway extension that he believed was wanted in Canterbury was that to Han me r Springs. A suggestion had been made to connect Hanmer by motor cars, but 1 the Government thought there ought to bo tho railway connection as soon as possible. That would be included in the extension of tho railway system, and would bo among the proposals*for the coming session. His own opinion was that Canterbury would have bad much more railway work done if there bad been more people on the land. Tho country would cany a much larger population, and tho Alpha and Omega, of the present Government would be, and was, the settlement of the people on the land. Ho thought that tho land purchase inspector was wrong in not acquiring Mr Moore’s Glenmark Station. (Hear, hear.) A grave mistake was made there, and if the matter Laid been left to the Government there

would have been scores of people on tbe land there under better conditions than at the present time. The Government had been told that they should have bought Parnassus, but after giving tbe matter deliberate and mature consideration they found they could not carry out the purchase •in justice to the country, for, according to the price asked, the transaction would have cost tho Government over £3OOO for every settler put upon the land. Ho would repeat what he had said at the turning of the first sod, that the Government ought to decide definitely what lands they required for close settlement along the line between Scargill and Blenheim. "They ought then to (rive notice to the owners that they intended to take the land, and the value could bo fixed fairly under the Land for Settlement legislation. Tho owners would then know where tucy were. Nothing would do Canterbury so much good as the placing of tho people upon the land, and 1 tho obtaining of estates for close settlement.

-Short speeches, expressing pleasure at the completion of the section, were delivered by Messrs T. H. Davcy, G. Laurensou, G. Witty and D. Buddo, members of tho House of Representatives. Sir George Clifford, Mr A. H. Turnbull and Mr J. Vaughan.