Untitled

New Zealand Mail, Issue 761, 1 October 1886, Page 23

It has been freely stated that although tenders have been invited and received for the first section of the Manawatu Gorge link of the North Island Trunk line, this is a mere pretext, the Government having determined to cut out the h«avy portions of the work, i.e., the tunnels and principal bridges. The explanation given was that the completion of the Gorge link would immediately render the Wellington and Manawatu railway, instead of the Masterton line, the main route from Wellington to the North and East and West. It was said that the Government had determined not to finish the Gorge section until the Manawatu Company should submit to sell their line to the Government on the Government's own terms, and that, failing this, every effort would be used to force all the Wellington-Napier traffic to go by the roundabout Masterton route when that railway should be made through to Woodville. This would be so extraordinary and indefensible a scheme that we hesitate to believe in the possibility of its being really in contemplation. For when the situation is considered in all its bearings the outrageous character of the implied device becomes at once manifest. The Manawatu line is by far the shortest and best possible route to Napier and th 6 East Coast. If the railways were open both from Palmerston and from Masterton to Woodville no sane person would hesitate for a moment by which line he would travel. The Manawatu route is not only many miles shorter, but the road is enormously easier. The gradients are slighter, and the curves comparatively trifling. Consequently the trains could be run far quicker and passengers could be conveyed both in much less time and also with infinitely less discomfort than via Masterton. The Rimutaka, with all its discomforts and dangers

and insufferable tedium, would be wholly escaped, while the scenery on tho Manawatu line is incomparably finer. Clearly, then it is bound on its own intrinsic merits to be the favourite route if the Palmerston-Woodville connection be made. But here, according to the current report, the Government purposed to intervene, and coolly say to their masters, the public, “ You"shall not travel by that shorter, quicker, easier, and pleasanter route; you shall submit to crawl over a far longer and rougher and more tortuous and uncomfortable road, up and down the Rimutaka, with its gradients of 1 in 35 on one side and 1 in 15 on the other, and its 80 or 90 curves of five chains radius ; we know that you would prefer the other route, and that it would be in every way quicker and pleasanter and better for you and for the country, but you 'shan't be allowed to use it, partly because we want to force the Manawatu Company to sell their property to us at much less than its honest value, and partly because we fancy that some people interested in the Wellington and Manawatu line are not supporters of ours, and so long as we can do them an ill turn we don’t care twopence about the public interest or welfare.” If the strange report to which we have referred were really true, the foregoing would be the only reasonable interpretation of its plain meaning. We do not hesitate to express our opinion very decidedly that such a device would be a grossly disreputable piece of trickery, a scandalous abuse of power, and a glaring disregard of the public interests. The Manawatu Gorge line is a most important and essential link in the trunk railway system of the North Island, indeed of the whole Colony. The experience of the incomplete Napier-Woodville section proves that if the line were carried through to Palmerston it would be one of the best paying lengths in the Colony. Without that link the Eastern and Western halves of This island are separated as effectually as are the North and South Islands by Cook Strait. Yet if that ugly rumour spoke true, it could only mean that the Government seriously contemplated stopping the construction ' of the line for two most paltry and unworthy motives, one being to bring undue pressure on a private company to make them part with their property, and the other being to vent a grudge on political opponents. We refuse, until direct evidence shall be forthcoming, to credit the possibility of Ministers perpetrating not only so grave a public wrong, but also so utterlv stupid a blunder as this would be. At the same time, we are constrained to admit that the Premier in his place in Parliament did explicitly threaten that this very course should be taken, but we always believed that that speech was a mere ebullition of passing petulance, and that it was not meant in serious earnest. The currency of this new report wears, however, a somewhat suspicious aspect, and we sincerely hope that it will receive a speedy and decisive contradiction on the part of Ministers. The pretence alleged to be set up, that the public good would be served by an endeavour to keep traffic from the Manawatu Railway because that is a private line, implies a singularly illiberal and short-sighted view of public affairs. Translated into plain English, it means that it is better that the progress of the whole country should be obstructed than that in assisting such progress any benefit should be conferred on a private railway company. No more nonsensical notion could be imagined. It would be ridiculous enough in any case, but its absurdity is immensely enhanced by the peculiar circumstances of the Manawatu Company’s existence. That Company’s business can hardly be called a “ private ” one at all, in the ordinary sense. It was never entered into as a money-making undertaking, but solely and purely with thegreat object of providinganecessary link 3 of the North Island Trunkline, which the late Government, acting on the idiotic advice of an incompetent and perfunctory Royal Commission, most unreasonably and improperly had refused to construct. The line is now on the eve of completion, and if the report in question were truthful it would mean that the present Government are plotting and planning how they may most effectively impair its usefulness. This would be truly a curious sort of statesmanship, and we cannot believe it commends itself to so capable a Public Works Minister as Mr Richardson or to Sir Julius Yogel, whose weakness does not generally lie in the direction of obstructing the country’s progress

and preventing the development of its resources. Yet as no work hitherto devised would operate so effectively in furthering that progress, and facilitating that development as the Manawatu Gorge link, it is manifest that the responsibility of obstruction must rest on all who hinder the completion of that Work. A semi-official statement has been locally published to the effect that there is no intention on the part of the Government to delay the construction of the Gorge line, and that such modifications as may be made will cause no hindrance. According to the Manawatu Times the following communication has been received by Mr Macarthur, M.H.B. for Manawatu, from the Minister for Public Works : The Gorge contract is not actually let yet. It is held over with several others till early next month. We have the right under terms of contract to cut out any work we may think fit. The bridges certainly will not be, but if we are advised the Pohangioa Bridge being put in hand before the tunnels will expedite the completion of whole line, we must exercise our right, and the successful tenderer has been so informed. —Edward Richardsox.

This is somewhat ambiguous in its wording, but itu ostensible purport is satisfactory so far as its goes. We sincerely hope that the construction which its phraseology seems to warrant is the correct one, and that there is no intention of acting on the declaration made in Parliament by the Premier, but it must be confessed that the curreney of the report upon which we have commented is an unfortunate and sinister coincidence. It will be the duty of all North Island members, particularly those representing the Wellington, Taranaki, and Hawke’s Bay Provincial Districts, and also of the Chambers ofCommerce to preserve constant watchfulness that the interests of this island are duly cared for. =====