THE -NORTH ISLAND TRUNK RAILWAY.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4323, 4 April 1901, Page 5

THE -NORTH ISLAND TRUNK RAILWAY.

Mr John Duthie writes to- the editor as follows-: —Having drawn attention to the unsatisfactory • progress : of the Trunk Railway, it' would';be 'disloyal to the ;city and, district if .I lenged ;yoUri stntemehtdthat Government “is really .pushingion, th'o Northern line at the , best speed obtainable.’’ . Surely you .are. not aware, that, with. the, exception of a mile o'r. sb.hy Mauganoho station and the. four-mile, contract- let under the Atkinson. administration, the present Governmfehk has not in, all those ten years begun ■ and opened for traffic one yard at the southern end of this railway. . So long, ago- as 1891 Mr S'eddon, in his Public Works Statement, speaking of this ■ recognised its urgency, and then promised that a contract would be put in hand. With the iron imported in • a prepared state probably a year would have sufficed for the contract, or if to be manufactured in the colony, then two years, as I think was stipulated, when tenders were invited, was a reasonable-time; but the work has been some five years in hand, and the' Minister now only promises its completion in another year —tho same time as he promised the House a year and a half ago—and probably knowing as little about when it will be completed as, he did then. The importance of the opening of this railway to the trade of Wellington and opening up of the country can hardly be overstated. Already building is being checked in the city by the "scarcity and high price of timber; an abundance of which is available with the extension of the line., In ..the, .presence of these, fgets 1 still think my..remarks at the Chamber of Commerce were vvell within.the mark. ■: ...