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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9014, 29 March 1888, Page 4

Once more the telegraph wires have succumbed to the wind, and Auckland is again cut off from communication with the rest of the world. There may seem an unseasonableness in speaking of public expenditure while retrenchment is ringing in the air. But that a condition of things in which this is possible should have continued during all the time that the borrowed millions have been teeming like water, and while every little tenth-rate village in the South has been placed beyond the possibility of interruption in electric communication with the whole world, is in a very eminent degree dishonourable to the representatives of Auckland, as well as to successive administrations. That we should only have communication with the South by the East Coast may have been reasonable enough in times of native difficulty, but many years have passed since connection might have been had with Taranaki by way of Taupo, and there lias been no valid reason why that small portion of country lias not been bridged by the electric wire. It has been certainly most culpable negligence, and even now, despite the claims of economy, this small but most necessary and important work should be insisted on. It is really intolerable that a place, with such a population as that of Auckland, should he liable to be cut oft' from the rest of the world at any time when a little puff of wind beyond the ordinary should have arisen, and blown down the wiies along the exposed coast traversed by them. This grievance has been so long, and frequently so keenly felt, that it should be brought before the Government with all the force of a public wrong ; and we do trust that the influence of the Auckland members, who are such a valuable and esteemed portion of the Ministerial phalanx, may be able to prove the appreciation in which they are held by obtaining this most reasonable concession to the convenience of Auckland.