THE TE ARO RAILWAY.

Free Lance, Volume XI, Issue 539, 29 October 1910, Page 6

THE TE ARO RAILWAY.

And the Shortsightedness of Some People. THE four city fathers who were defeated 011 the motion to ask

the Government to take up the Te Aro rail lines are lamentably deficient in prescience and imagination. They seem constitutionally unable to foresee even the near future. They would have .the Government and the city make a distinct backward step. To take up that liambton station —Te Aro rail line would be about as sensible a course as talcing up the tram-lines over which Mr. Shirtcliffe and Mr. Fletcher travel to and from their homes. The idea that horse-waggons cai serve the goods traffic of the Te Aro end of the city is too absurd for words. The people of Te Aro might as well take to wheelbarrows.

It seems incomprehensible that the fiew members of the City Council who ars opposed to the rail-line to Te Aro cannot realise the immense importance of 'the southern end of -the city- Population is spreading in that direction ■fa'* more quickly than in any other part, because of its natural advantages. There there is room for the city to grow. Wellington is exceedingly circumscribed in every other direction. And the time will shortly oomie when, in order to serve the tenia of thousands who live south of Te Aro, the railway line will have to be extended .from Te Aro to Island Bay. And it won't stop at Island Bay long, fo:* it will presently have to .go on to Mir a mar .and Sea-toun. This is inevitable. And yet some of our wiseacres want to tear the little Te Arolino up! Verily, it is one of those things that no fellow can understand.