WELLINGTON NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9012, 27 March 1888, Page 5

WELLINGTON NEWS.

[BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN*CORRESPONDENT. ] Wellington, Monday. DR. NEWMAN, M.H.R., AND THE NORTH

ISLAND TRUNK RAILWAY. The letters lately published by the member for Thorndon fare badly at the hands of the Press. This evening, in a leading article by a well-known hand, the writer, alluding to Dr. Newman's report, says :—" He invited us to share his opinion that tho land traversed by the route is a farmer's paradise, ready to smile with a harvest as soon as it is tickled with a hoe, and heaving with fatness for innumerable flocks and herds. So far, his enthusiasm for the central route carries him, but no further. His natural truthfulness impels him to describe something altogether different from what he himself thinks he saw. His mere statements of fact, apart from the sanguine conclusions which he draws from them, are quite sufficient to satisfy us that his farmers' paradise is neither more nor less than a picturesque wilderness, consisting of patchy and broken bush land, and that his arcadia may simply be classed as inferior sheep country. Dr. Newman frankly admits that parts of the land he passed through is desert, and it is easy to see that his praises of the other parts are to be considered relatively to the desert. If this country were as rich as Dr. Newman would like us to believe it would not be worth making a railway through. The proof of that is that the railways through the best land and the longest-settled land in the colony do not pay. If the line from Culverden to tho Bluff, which serves the most populous and productive area in New Zealand, can only be made to pay about half the interest on its cost, what madness it would be to make a railway through the ' new world ' discovered by Dr. Newman." THE NEW GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICES. As I expected, the new Government printing offices have excited the ire of the local critics. There is no getting " upstairs "or " downstairs " except by spiral steps " two feet six wide. This new printing house was put off under the auspices of the late Government. I must say the roofs of the several storeys are rather low for such a building, and I shall not be surprised to hear much complaint from those who will have to work in it. I understand that the building was designed by an engineer who was formerly an officer of the Works Department. There is one thing to be said about the building, namely, that the greatest pressure 'was brought to bear by Wellington on the late Minister of Public Works (the Hon. E. Richardson) to erect a brick instead of a. wooden building. This building has cost something over £20,000, whereas a suitablo building'could have been erected for less than i 10,000. Moreover, the new building will not bo available to the staff this ensuing session of Parliament. Here is what the Post says on the subject:—" We hope that when Parliament meets strict inquiry will be made into all the circumstances connected with the erection of this new printing office. It has been a most extraordinary time in course of erection, and we are informed that the cost of alterations and extras will amount to an enormous sum. It is still being pulled about, altered, and improved, or the reverse. It should have been completed for occupation many months ago. If the matter is fully inquired into, it will, we believe, be found that it has been a most scandalous waste of money over this building, and that a suitable printing office, quite equal to the requirements of the department, and better adapted to thom, could have been erected for something like half what the present building will cost. In this case at least the Public Works Department cannot attempt to wriggle out of the direct responsibility."