RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18119, 17 June 1922, Page 10

RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION.

RIVALRY JN POLICIES.

AUCKLAND AND TAUPO BODIES. Two distinct railway policies were represented by the preliminary speaker* before the Rotorua-Taupo Railway Commission yesterday —the promoters of the proposed new railway and the Auckland Railways League, which stands for the completion of main lines before any other new constructions are undertaken. Mi. E. Earle Vaile, president of the Rotorua-Taupo Government Railway League, in outlining the tenor of the evidence he had to offer, commented upon the fact that this was the first occasion on which an inquiry been sat up in advance with regard to a railwayconstruction proposal, and also the first instance in which the landowners interested had agreed to give monetary assistance toward the construction. His league held that the proper policy was to construct railways Into the interior of the country, and into unoccupied country, as distinguished from settled land and along the coast. The success of. the North Island Main Trunk Railway in opening up flourishing towns where formerly there was desert country was evidence of the wisdom of such a policy. The league was certain that similar results would follow the construction of the Rotorua-Taupo railway. The landowners of the district which the proposed railway would traverse, said Mr. Vaile, took the view that* if they subsidised the work, they should obtain some advantage from doing ao; that if the line was to await the convenience of the Government, they should not be called upon to pay iny more than the landowners of other districts. If, however, there was a prospect ol the railway being constructed in the immediate future, they were quite prepared to give monetary aid. As to agriculture, the league did not take the ground that the country concerned was really first-class land. It was, however, land which had responded remarkably well to working and manures, and wi&hout proper transport facilities the settlers ware unable to bring manures and other necessary supplies to the district. The railway would open up an enormous ainount of habitable land, and he welcc-ried the investigation of its possibilities. Mr. P. E. Cheal, president of £>* Auckland 'Railways League, said his league had no desire to depreciate the Rotorua-Taupo proposal, but a held that the main trunk lines should be completed first. One of the main planks of the leagues policy ■fior years had been resistance to the unbusinesslike system raider which 19 or 20 railways were under construction at the same time. Only through traffic would pay when the country had good roads, with automobiles and trolleys plying upon them. In America 10-day trolleys were going from New York to San Francisco in the same travelling time as that of the railwav, and he believed the time would come when New Zealand would require nothing more in the way of railway construction than the main trunk lines, with concrete roads serving them as feeders. The position taken up by the league was that until the main lines were linked up the Government should not undertake any further lines. If the tourist traffic was to be_ encouraged, there must in due course be means of going from Rotorua to Taupo, and out to the Main Trunk railway, without the necessity fior returning to Frankton. Such a line oupht to go through to Oio, south of Taumaruni r tfct which place it had been declared it could be made without a bridge or u tunnel. His lea?me wished, however, to see the Taranaki line and the East Coast line connected up with Auckland first, ber-ause these would give a tremendous impetus to settlement and production.