THE WAIHI LINE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14531, 19 November 1910, Page 6

THE WAIHI LINE.

Although £110,000 has been placed on the Estimates for the survey and construction of various sections of the East Coast Railway Napier, Motu, and at Tauranga—there is not even an authorisation for that most important section which should strike eastward from Waihi. In all scientific railway construction it is recognised as essential that lines should extend from the main systems, which extensions would feed and make more profitable. But for its own mysterious reasons the Government has refused to make any extension of the Auckland system towards the East Coast, as it has refused to make any extension of the Auckland system towards Stratford. Yet there is no part of the Dominion more deserving of railway construction allocation or more certain to give prompt returns than that which lies eastward from Waihi, where a line would open a fertile district whose local market would be a most attractive one, and whose export and import trade would be a valuable asset 'to the Waihi-Auckland railway. The Waihi Borough Council has called upon the Government to amend the injustice to which the district has been so long exposed, and to which it is still subjected. "The Council asks "that an amount be placed on Supplementary Estimates as an earnest of the intention of Cabinet;" it is not possible for Sir Joseph Ward to refuse this modest request without exhibiting a wilful opposition to the legitimate interests . of Waihi and Auckland which has not the slightest excuse or justification. In the South Island a dozen branches have been built which do not offer anything like the same possibilities of railway business as does the section between Waihi and Tauranga, while the construction of East Coast sections is going on and being commenced at points which have not the long-standing claims of Waihi. Our Auckland members should give to ' the Waihi petition their most strenuous support, for this is a matter which concerns not only the trade of the city but the prospects of obtaining better transit and traffic facilities upon the whole of the provincial! railway system. Self-con-gratulation at having obtained a few thousand pounds more—on — for the under-railwayed North Island than is given this year to the over-

railwayed South. Island, should not obscure the fact that a very grievous injustice is being inflicted by the refusal of the Government to litart work either at Waihi or at Ongarue.