RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 100, 29 April 1908, Page 3

RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION.

Main trunk railway line completion is strongly advocated by the New Zealand Shipping Gazette and Mercantile Journal. This newspaper says:— " There can be no question that the first railway lines that should have attention in a young country are the main arterial ones. From a commercial standpoint, such are imperative ; from a strategical point of view, to neglect such is suicidal. A hostile force is not likely to attempt-> landing under the guns of our forts—no matter how harmless—but would disembark its forces at some isolated and undefended spot, considered suitable for use as a base. Without an arterial railway line, how would it be possible to concentrate our troops at an" point so threatened? The Railway Policy of bygone Governments has been ' you scratch my back and we'll scratch yours ' or, reduced to plain English, the districts that were politically powerful received a prodigal railway vote, and districts the reverse received scant treatment. If the railway map of New Zealand was handed to a stranger of keen . intellect, he would be puzzled to understand New Zealand's railway construction policy —a few ishort miles here, a few there, not a single line carried to its true geographical terminal point, short railway lines dotted all over the country, with great gaps between, a large number of these only awaiting the bridging of the gaps to become paying propositions, meanwhile a number are not paying interest on cost or construction."

_ The Gazette deplores the parochialism of the past, and proceeds: "Happily, we see in the present Government a great improvement in that respect, and we sincerely hope that every- parochial politician is defunct. Winch brings us to our point, and that is the urgent need that, exists for the adoption of a Main Trunk Railway Line Policy . A policy that will be steadrast and that will not be turned aside until Wellington is Domed with Hokianga in the North and Pictonis linked with the Bluff A policy that will consign all branch lines to oblivion until such is completed is needed badly, ana would give x,he country a tremendous impetus in its onward march towards commercial prosperity. Take as an illustration It ,^ rtlle but isolated lands of South Marlborough. What an immense impulse would be given to that splendid country if the Bluff-Hurunui section was extended to Cook Strait." The Gazette recognises the great value of good harbours' and steamer communication, but sees the greater utility of railways in transporting fat stock and perishable products which snould be handled as little as possible It concludes: " The backbone of a country is the small settler who cultivates mother earth to her utmost capacity ... The disabilities of boutn Marlborough are also those of very many other districts, and a completed Mam Trunk line from the Bluff to Hokianga is the one way of removing those disabilities. After all it is a matter of finance. We are told that our credit was never better. Then let our credit be pledged in exchange for railways."