THAT STRATFORD DEAL

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8367, 1 March 1913, Page 5

THAT STRATFORD DEAL

AND SOME LOCAL HISTORY. Special to the “Times.” NEW PLYMOUTH, February 28. Mr Massey’s advisers must have told him some tarradiddles about the sale of that section in Stratford to the Railway Department for £I2OO. Bo it known that this land is not part of a sawmill property at all, and the Prime Minister pays Stratford a very small compliment when he believes that a sawmill still exists in the corner of the railway yard, right in the centre of this ,<gnly progressive borough. It is true than me vendor of the section is a sawmill owner, and has been a sawmill owner in Taranaki for a great many years. It is still in the memory of many Stratford inhabitants, too, that a tramline used to run from a sawmill out on the East road to the firm’s timber yards in Stratford, and it is a portion of this timber yard that has now been acquired. As for the compensation for loss of business, the firm has been using a yard in another street for several months past, and on the door of the manager’s old office at the now dismantled railway site was a notice almost constantly directing callers to the now yard in Mirando street. The fact remains that the section just acquired for £I2OO is situated in Juliet street, a street in which business sites are at a discount. Had the department acquired a similar area in the main street at a fair valuation the country would have been some hundreds of pounds better off. But a sawmill, forsooth, in the heart of Stratford! If the department is prepared to pay £I2OO for this site, what will be paid for the comer section adjoining it when the time comes for buying that site for the purpose of further extending the railway grounds?

With regard to the Government’s purchase of a a&ction of land at Stratford for £I2OO, which was valued on the books of the Stratford Borough Council at £3OO, the Prime Minister further explained yesterday that the lection was required by the Railway Department at Stratford for certain improvements considered urgently necessary ; that the department was quite satisfied that it was getting value for its money, and that had advantage not been taken of the opportunity, a much “higher price would have had to be paid later oh. Tne price included compensation for loss of business, and he was informed that the £3OO given as the value of the land was the unimproved value only, and there was a building with some other improvements on the section. The Railway Department was willing and anxious that the transaction bo fully inquired into.