“NELSON’S TURN NOW”

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 1 September 1945, Page 4

“NELSON’S TURN NOW”

REQUEST FOR TRUNK RAILWAY SHOULD NOT BE DIFFIDENT IN ASKING "The Glenhopc Inangahua railway gap is one of the few remaining major railway works in New Zealand left to be completed to give communication with the trunk system and the people in the northern end of the South Island should not be diffident about pressing for the job to be done." said Mr G. H. Mackley. M.P. for Masterton, and a former General Manager of Railways, in an interview. What the people were asking for was access, continued Mr Mackley. During a large part of the past century the inhabitants of Nelson and the adjacent districts had paid taxes to the national exchequer to help meet the cost of railway lines in other places. They had been left to near the last and now they were fully justified in claiming that the rest of New Zealand should help pay for a railway which would give access to a trunk system. The filling of this gap was of na tional importance no less than were those railway works of past years, in his experience in the Department he had seen many examples of how a railway had infused fresh life and vigour into a community.