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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7650, 29 May 1886, Page 4

Hitherto we have been comparing the total proposed expenditure in the South with the total proposed expenditure in the North, and have shown that, taking everything into account, we are placed at a great disadvantage. But in reality we are, to put it roughly, being done in another way. The Government have put down " For doubling railway line out of Auckland, £33,000," and this is reckoned as if it were to be expended in opening up the country by a new line. But in reality it has no right to be taken into account in that way. The expenditure is simply to remedy the Government's own blunders. The railways in the North were made in a very different style from the

manner in which they were constructed in the South. Anything was thought good enough for us. Everybody said that our railways would scarcely pay for grease to tho engine wheels. .At that time the Government were making lines in the Seuth through districts which were fully settled, and so they could scarcely be made well enough; but now we hear of lines in the South .which have been reduced to two train* a week, while others have had to be shut up altogether. Here, on the contrary, we have been in constant difficulties from the inferior construction of our lines and the steadilyincreasing traffic. When Ministers and Southern railway engineers are drawn over our line to Waikato they .spend tiie time growling at the jolting they are subjected to, and flouting and sneering at us for being so far behind the South. Within the last twelve months or so large sums have had to be spent in taking sharp curves out of the line at Tuakau and other places—curves which were so acute as for a large part of the line to reduce the trains to a walking pace. And whenever there has boon any extra traflic on the line as far as Penrose, people have had to endure the most monstrous delays and inconveniences, while the traillc has only been carried on at imminent danger to human life, there being only one line of rails. The Government now propose to bring tho line somewhat up to the necessities of the traffic by constructing a second line as far as Penrose, and the amount required is reckoned as part of the railway expenditure on the North Island. We altogether demur to its being stated in this way. When the amount is spent, and the loop line made, our railway will still *be under the requirements of the traffic. We have no more right to be, as it were, charged for making this loop line, as against new works in the South, than for laying clown more rails, which would be the better plan if it could be done, or for the additional carriages or engines required for the increasing trailic. There is, we observe, a sum of £200,000 put down as expenditure on open lines, and the £33,000 required for the loop line to Penrose should be taken out of that. Looking at the lines proposed to be made in the South, we can scarcely help coming to the conclusion that some of them are simply for the purpose of causing expenditure in certain districts; not to accommodate the necessities of trailic, but in places where there is no traffic, and from the very nature of the country never can be traffic requiring a railway. We have for instance, " Blenheim - Tophouse, £100,000/' This line extends from the town of Blenheim towards the West Ooast, and is really part of a second East and West Coast Railway. No sooner have these people a good prospect of having the Christchurch - Hokitika line made by an enormous gift of Crown land to a London syndicate, than they determine to have another line out of the colony which shall ultimately extend from Blenheim through a wild and mountainous country to Westport and Greymouth. The line from Blenheim to Tophouse would be about 60 or 70 miles, and the £100,000 proposed now to be expended would go but a small way towards the total cost, but of course that amount having been spent would be an irresistible argument for continuing tho expenditure in future till the line reached the West Coast. When tho Railway Commission examined some years ago all the lines proposed to be constructed, they inarksd this one with especial disapproval. They had four categories : " 1. Railways recommended to be proceeded with at once. '2. Railways recommended to be proceeded with when further funds are available. 3. Railways recommended to be postponed. 4. Railways not recommended." The Commissioners, after inspecting the ground and examining a number of witnesses, did not merely , recommend the indefinite postponement of this line, but condemned it utterly, saying virtually that its construction was not a question for the present generation. And yet the Government propose to go on with it at once, to expend more money upon it than upon the Trunk line to the North, and to construct it while they make no mention of the line from Pukekohe to Waiuku, which was strongly recommended by the Railway Commissioners. Here is the decision of the Commissioners in regard to the Blen-heim-Tophouse line, was given in their report:— Blenheim to Roundel!. —Neither the extent of agricultural land in the district which this line would traverse, nor the prospect of increased settlement to arise from its construction, is sufficient to induce ue to recommend expenditure upon it. The colony is now convinced of the waste and absurdity of constructing lines where there is no traffic, and where from the mountainous and savage character of the country, there never can be traffic enough to support a railway. To construct public works in such districts is simply to waste money, to pile taxation upon an already over-bur-dened people, and to retard settlement in districts that are fitted for it. We would urge, therefore, that the House should not " plunge" in this matter, and simply swallow the schedule put before members by the Government, but should appoint a committee or commissioners, who should carefully examine every line proposed, and who would recommend the construction of those lines only which have some prospect of being 9f service to the colony.