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New Zealand Mail, Issue 546, 22 July 1882, Page 18

A considerable amount of dissatisfaction, both in Wellington and at Palmerston, has, we learn, been caused by the non-apportionment of any part of the proposed loan for the railway connecting Woodville and Palmerston, and by the omission to even name it in the Public Works Statement. The omission of any mention of it, indeed, appears to have given greater offence than the failure to set apart any money towards its construction ; and the offence seems to be felt the more keenly that parties interested in promoting this important portion of the branch lines connecting all the Provincial Districts of Auckland, Taranaki, Hawke’s Bay, and Wellington appear to have been led by the Minister for Public Works to believe that it would receive favorable consideration from the Ministry. It may be that the omission is capable of an easy and satisfactory explanation. The survey of the route through the- Manawatu Gorge and the connecting point with the TaranakiFoxton line may not yet have been finally determined j and it may be that are

dependent on whether the inland route between Palmerston and Te Awamutu shall be decided on. Another possible explanation is that a portion of the sums reserved for the Masterton-Woodville and Napier-Woodville lines is intended to be spent on the line between Woodville and Palmerston. But, in whatever way it is to be explained, it is highly desirable that the omission should not be suffered to remain as a cause of complaint and disaffection, and that immediate steps should be taken to remove it. It were, we think, unwise to declaim against the Government as guilty of intentional neglect ; but it is at the same time a duty imposed on all who attach due weight to the construction of the line in question firmly to represent its claims, and see that these are properly recognised. The simplest way, perhaps, of remedying any oversight of these claims would be to appropriate to the construction of this line from the Palmerston side a part of the £360,000 allocated for the extension of the lines from Masterton and Makatoko. Or, if matters are not in a sufficiently forward state to admit of thi3 step, let the line between Woodville and Palmerston be publicly sanctioned as one whose construction will be proceeded with as soon as circumstances will allow. A 3 a central link connecting the Napier and Woodville, Wellington and Manawatu, Taranaki and Foxton, Auckland and Wellington, as also the Masterton and Woodville lines, its importance cannot be overestimated, and the Government will act wisely in betowing upon it, in all respects, the prominence to which it is entitled.