THE EAST COAST ROUTE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16502, 30 March 1917, Page 4

THE EAST COAST ROUTE.

'• k ■ Nobody can expect to persuade Mr. Fraser that an East Coast railway is more worthy of ministerial favour than an Otira Tunnel, but it might be supposed that even traditional prejudices in favour of, the Southern 1 Alps I would, be I bo''far waived as. to acknowledge .-the superiority of the East . Coast for settlement and its need for railway communication with the provincial system. The Minister for Works—• who signalled his entry to office by arbitrarily suspending work on this V/aihi-Athenree section—is only able to regret that he did not again close the section long ago. The reason offered is that it was. not worth while to keep an engineer for twenty men, but there has never been anything to prevent the Department putting 200 men on the Waihi-Athenree-Tauranga sections. Even in war time a construction which will carry the railway system of the I North Island into the greatest unj developed area in the Dominion should be pushed with all possible vigour. The East Coast route is being mismanaged as well as starved. It is being tinkered with at intermediate points, instead of being dealt with from the ends in business-like fashion, and the slightest excuse is taken advantage of by the ( Minister to stop work at the Waihi end altogether. Costly pumping is employed at the Otira Tunnel in order that both ends may be driven at the same time, but the East Coast railway is not in the South Island, and Mr. Fraser is not interested in its future. %