EAST COAST RAILWAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18963, 10 March 1925, Page 7

EAST COAST RAILWAY.

Sir, —A very stiff gale is "working tip here to-day, and is bringing home to busi- . ness people the fact that owing to the i unconscionable time which it is taking i to bring the railway into the town it wiu quite possibly be a week before wo get > delivery of our goods. Many of us are I really wondering if we shall live to seo the train in Taneatua, as the prospect of j our so doing seems quite as remote as it i did just prior to the last general election, when we had it on the authority of a ! responsible officjal that it would be here inside about 14 months, viz., Christmas, f 1922. The railway bridge over the Whakatane River seems to be the greatest 1 cause of the delay, but when one hears the i remarks of those "who ought to know it looks as if it is the intention of the de- ' partment to take things so easily that the section to Taneatua will bo finished ; at the same time as Armstrong, Whit- ! worth's contract on the other side of ' Tauranga. Meanwhile the taxpayer is ' handing out interest on incomplete 3 work, which as an ordinary business pro- [ position should have been finished years ' ago; but there—why worry about that—1 it is only the public who pay for depart- " mental inefficiency! How is it that no Government department or public body 5 seems to be able to get work done as quickly, or public money spent, as carefully and economically as the private individual ? Hla TIT Stck. Tancatua, March 5, 1925.