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New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5373, 5 February 1879, Page 2

We have several times of late referred to the manner in which the Government have acted in procuring sleepers for tho railway. Puriri makes the best possible sleepers, and if the world were surveyed, from China to Peru, and from New Zealand to Lapland, belter sleepers than those made of puriri could not be found. But the Government actually applied to Tasmauia to relieve us, as if here we were suffering a timber famine, while the fact was, that we were blest beyoud anything that- Tasmania or Australia could furnish. Happily, Mr. Macaudrew is a man accessible to reason on tuch a subject as this, and perhaps he was not so very much to blame, after all for, not being acquaint'-d with a timber tree which does not grow in Otago. But after the Public Works Department were choked off from the Tasmanian project—if, indeed, they have been completely turned from it — they fell into a mistako fihnnst as fatal by insisting that all puriri sleepers must lie sawn, and not split, which was almost prohibitory to tho settlers in the district whence puriri can most readdy be obtained. We observe, however, that the Public Works Department now advertise for "25,000 sleepers, with the notilication merely that "tho preference will bo given to sawn tlcepers."