EAST COAST RAILWAY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15519, 29 January 1914, Page 9

EAST COAST RAILWAY

NEGLECT OF WAIKI END.

MR. ERASER'S PROMISE.

NO SIGN OF A START.

After stopping work on the WaihiAthonreo section of the East Coast Railway, tho present. Minister for Public Works (the Hon. W. Eraser) was induced by tho representations made to him 'from various quarters last year to placo a sum of £10 i 000 on the Public Works Estimates •for t.ho resumption of the work. When the Estimates were being discussed on December 6, Mr. Fraser stated, in reply to a question from Sir Joseph Ward, that, as the vote of £10.000 was for the period ending March 31, it was equivalent to a vote of nearly £40,000 a year. It would be of no use, he said, to! overload the Estimates by increasing the vote. He said that, whilst he could not ■give a definite assurance to have the vote of £10,000 spent by March 31, lie would do his best in that direction. Mr. H. Poland, M.P. for Ohinemuri, who was in Auckland yesterday, stated J •that as yet no start has been mode with 1 the work, and that there is no sign of the j ponded operations being resumed. A quantity of formation work was done ,before tho men were knocked off in 1912. •This work, Mr. Poland said, could surely .be continued, with little preparation, at the point at which it was discontinued, •but tho people of tho district up till the , present time had been waiting in vain for the Minister's promise to be fulfilled. He doubted, from present indications whether tho expenditure before March 31 would amount to more than £500.