THE HOTT RAILWAY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXI, Issue 13415, 18 April 1904, Page 5

THE HOTT RAILWAY.

[Feom Our Correspondent.] DUNEDIN, April 15. Regarding Mr Duthie's statement regarding the straightening of the Hutt railway line, that there is little chance of being completed within the next fifteen or twenty years-, and his suggestion that the Wellington Chamber 0 f Commerce should take the initiatiive and get the improvement of the line taken up as a private speculation, Sir Joseph Ward said to your representative that of course the period of years mentioned was merely an exaggerated form of expression, and while Mr Duthie was welcome to express an opinion of the kind, there was nothing to warrant such an assumption on his part. The preliminaries in connection with the wont were already settled, and the work would be commenced at an early date, and prosecuted with. reasonable speed. He was entirely against the suggestion that the work should be taken up as a speculation by private individuals, as it was essentially one that required to be carried out by the Railway Department, as it had to be made alongside a running track, over which the whole traffic to and from Wellington and the country required to be conducted by the Railway Department without any stoppage or irregularity. For that reason the Cabinet had decided that the whole of the work should be controlled by the Working Railways Department, and not the Public Works Department. This particular work would he carried out and completed' without the assistance of the Wellington Chamber of Oommeroe or of private speculators.