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Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 344, 31 May 1877, Page 2

The Tucqyeha Times says that the District Engineer (Mr. Blair) " has visited the several proposed routes of railway to the interior," and that '• his preference is decidedly for the Strath-Taieri route, as being the shortest and easiest made and the one that will open the largest area of good country." Of course we cannot say upon what authority our contemporary gives utterance to the above statement, but we presume it has received some "prompting" in the matter —possibly from Mr. Blair himself

One thing, however, we do know, and that is this : Whoever supplied the information to our contemporary must hava been guilty of one of two things —either he knowingly told a faslsehood, or he must have been totally ignorant of the configuration of the country through which the line would have to pass. It is just possible that Mr. Blair, who is known to favor the proposal of the Dunedin people to take the interior line of railway via Strath-Taieri, may have visited that route ; indeed, we have not the slightest doubt that he has done so. But we must decidedly take- exception to the statement that Mr. Blair has visited "the several proposed routes." We believe we are correct in stating that the District Engineer has not paid even a flying visit to the route advocated by ; the people of Oamaru and Naseby. How then, he could possibly be in a position to assert that the Strath-Taieri route is the shortest, wouldbethe easiest made, and the one that would open up the largest area of good country, we are at a loss to know; in fact, we do not think that, however much Mr. Blair, from personal or other motives, may desire the StrathTaieri route, he would knowingly be guilty of making statements so obviously antagonistic to truth as those attributed to him by the Tuapeka Times, The StrathTaieri route is not the shortest, neither do we think it will be found the easiest of construction, while we must be pardoned if we question whether that route will open up a larger amount of good land than would be the case were the line from Oamaru adopted. Until a proper survey has been made of the different routes ic is manifestly unfair that any Government servant should advocate any special line ; much less should he by mis-statements attempt to gain favour for any line which, for some cause or other, he personally has a preference.