THE RAILWAY SITUATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14132, 6 August 1909, Page 4

THE RAILWAY SITUATION.

The railway situation of the Dominion is as simple as a : proverb. Having brought the finances of the country into confusion by building lines in the South Island which were absolutely unneeded and wholly unpromising, the Government proposes to ; set the finances right by practically suspending new railway construction in; both Islands. ; And this in face of the official figures, which show: .'. , ; ....

Mileage .in the South Island ... 1,550 Mileage in the North"lsland ~,„ 1,135

Excess in the' South Island ..." 415

Mr. ~R: -McKenzie has suggested in i Dunedin that when the Dominion has 5,000,000 people there will "be 1,000,000 in Otago, and that the Otago Central may then be continued. But what "prospect is there of: 5,000,000 people ever obtaining a living in the Dominion .while the Government refuses ... to .unlock Crown and Native Lands and neglects to push a railway to, the East Coast 1 ? When ..•■ the Dominion has 5,000,000 people there will be two or: three hundred thousand in Otago and at,least half a million on the East Coast alone. It is fine,* fertile, accessible country, practically unsettled, yet capable of absorbing immediately the entire population of Otago. Our Minister talks cheerfully of future Otago Central extensions, ignoring the fact that the needs of the North are literally present, and that 415 miles of railway is due to the North before our greater population has as great, a railway , mileage as its neighbours. In Auckland province, excepting in the northern peninsula, there is practically no railway work going on. We cannot even get the Stratford connection and the Gisborne

connection started from the northern ends. ~■• *