AUCKLAND'S BITTER CRY FOR RAILWAYS AND ROADS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9480, 9 April 1894, Page 3

AUCKLAND'S BITTER CRY FOR RAILWAYS AND ROADS.

O mu T0 THE TOR. MR,— usual quiet flutter on our otherwise placid stream of time has taken place, relative to the vexed question of railway communication between Auckland and the rest of the colony. The Auckland Railway League has deputationised the Premier, and has been snubbed for its pains by a man evidently ignorant of the records of the past, and now we have Dr. Newman, with an eye to the advancement of Wellington, trying to bring about a compromise. It would be as well briefly to review the position of affairs to refresh the memories of Auckland citizens, and especially to remind our members that communication direct with Taranaki by rail or road— latter for preference—in the present state of the finances of the colony, is an absolute necessity, as well as being a matter of justice to this end of the colony. First of all, it is an axiomatic truth that the provincial district of Auckland has been studiously left out in the cold as far as national expenditure is concerned for railways and roads ever since the Public Works policy was inaugurated in 1870 ; and at the present time, with an expenditure of nearly .fifteen millions sterling for opened lines, Auckland, which contributes about one-quarter of the whole consolidated revenue of the colony, has about £2,100,000 expended for opened lines, out of the six millions spent in the North Island and nine millions in the South, eight millions of which is on the Hurunui-Bluff line. Now for the rival railway routes before we touch on Auckland roads. The evidence given in 1884. relative to the Central and Sratford (or western) routes was very misleading in many respects. The whole of the work, including stations, rails, and a fully equipped line ;from Marton to Te Awamutu, 216 miles, was to cost £1,292,000. Now it is estimated to cost £2,085,000, and the engineer in chief in his report for 1889, says the data as to this extra amount does not seem to be reliable. The first point then tor the Auckland members to remember, is that the central route will cost instead of £5100 per mile, an estimate prepared after three surveys, a trial one, a theodolite survey, and properly levelled and graded survey, will cost between £10,000 and £11,000 per mile, and that is the estimate on data that is not reliable. The second point to recollect is that the Minister of Public Works for the time being, 1884, and others, variously estimated the distance of poor pumice country that the central route would pass through ™ w£!? ml° * 115 miles - This distance at £11,000 a mile will give the colony an idea of how much money would be absolutely squandered in making a line through country totally unfit for settlement, that would tend to give intending settlers travelling along it such a fat of the " blues " that they would not stay to masticate match heads, but would end their miserable existence by a flying leap oyer one of the deep ravines, like the Mokohine viaduct, which was estimated to cost, with two others, £25,000, but will cost for %«J^JJ cfciou y lafcfce r computation at least £60,000. _ Third point to remember: That the saving in the total length of line between Auckland and Wellington is only fortv-seven miles or two hours saving in time "by the Central route, and for this Mr. Seddon and his friends would sacrifice half-a-million of money by throwing it away on pumice stone country, and cut off from railway communication with Auckland 20,000 people in the Taranaki district who would never travel from 100 to 150 miles towards Wellington to reach Auckland by rail. While on the other hand bv the Stratford ioute half-a-million of money* could be saved to the colony in public works expenditure, and i* would pass through country every acre of which is infinitely better than the pumice, and very much of it, even the rough portions, will carry 3& and 4 sheep to the acre.

Further, the Central route reaches an altitude of 2680 feet against 969 feet on the Stratford route, or a difference of 1/00 feet in favour of the latter route, and it must be remembered that this high altitude is maintained for many miles, and if Mr. Seddon will read carefully the report of Field's track, which is supposed to be a feeder from VVanganui to the Central line, he will find it stated that the cold is so intense that it is unfit for stock in the winter months. I am aware that a great deal has been said professionally about the haulage question, but it amounts to nothing; it is based only on the gradients on the constructed lines between Marton and Stratford, which Mr. Seddon states can be greatly modified. Th<» data along the Stratford route is not reliable as far as grades are conceraed, for the same careful survey has not been made on that route as on the Central route. Re Dr. Newman's idea of a branch line from Taumaranui to Waitara, which of course would make the line to Wellington very much longer, and would only be a branch line for all time—if possible to construct. He is simply writing of what he knows nothing about, for he can" not know the kind of country at the back of Waitara known as the Ngatimaru country or he would never have written proposing a, line in that direction.

It would be easy to fill your paper, Mr. Editor, with arguments in favour of the Stratford route as against the central. Bub to come to roads. It is not much use agitating for railways at the present, for that means borrowing, but it is a disgrace to the colony, and to the various governments of the past, that two large centres of population like Auckland and Taranaki have never been connected by a decent graded road, and this is the more to be wondered at, as the greater portion could have been made through confiscated territory. It is a disgrace to our members of the past that in the face of the large expenditure for roads and tracks to connect Napier Taupo, Wanganui, New Plymouth, in fact nearly the whole of the North Island south of Auckland with Wellington, we have no road communication with New Plymouth and an apology for a road to Napier. It is a further eternal disgrace to Auckland provincial district that we have so long calmly sat down and allowed millions of acres of settled country lauds to be roadless— speak advisedly. I do not call the graded bridle tracks roads. They do things differently in the Wellington and Taranaki districts and in the South Island. The roads there are fit for a buggy or at least a dray, before the land is' settled on. .

To this state of affairs all New Zealand Governments have been wilfully blind, and I believe that nothing less than a straight refusal on the part of the settlers of the Auckland provincial district to pay another penny of taxation for Customs or land taxes into the consolidated revenue of the colony will open the eyes of any Government to the fact that over one hundred thousand persons in the north part of the colony of New Zealand, who, have contributed about one-quarter of the . whole revenue ot the country for the past twentyfive years, have not had a modicum of justice meted out to them in railway or road expenditure, or even in expenditure for the unemployed at various epochs of the history of the colony. When Auckland members are ready to sink party feeling and unitedly pull togethernineteen men as one— put any Government out of power who will not treat them justly, not till then shall we see any alteration in ■ the present state of affairs, or any hope for our future.lam, etc., P. E. Cheal,