The Oamaru Mail WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE NEW ZEALAND AGRICULTURIST. TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 1879.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 980, 10 June 1879, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE NEW ZEALAND AGRICULTURIST. TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 1879.

Wb have seen a memorial to the Hon. the Minister for Works which is being signed by the land-owners and others in the"VN aireka district, praying for a station and siding on the Waiareka railway at V\ hitstone. That there should be any occasion tr> get up this memorial—that the Government should hesitate to comply with the repeated applications of the Road Board and the County Conncil to pot in a siding at Whitstonc —is one of those wonderful things connected with the management of our railways which "no fellah can understand." It seems that some three years ago a somewhat similar memorial was presented by the people of the district to the Waiareka Road Board, praying the Board to cooperate with the Provincial Government to make a railway sitting at Whitstonc. The Provincial Government of Otago seems to have been alive to the necessity for the Whitstonc siding. Provincial Governments may not have been quite «;> to the mark in everything, but they sometimes knew what wa3 wanted in an agricultural district, and did it. The difficulty, however, lay in the fact that it was a private road which led up to the railway at that place, for on tho 27th November, 1876, the Provincial Government, or rather, the Acting Lnder- ; Secretary, wrote to the "Waiareka Road Board, stating the willingness of the Provincial Government to make the siding, provided the Hoard would secure a public road to it. On the faith of this (proposal, the Waiareka Road Board set to I work, and, after some rather tedious negotiations, obtained a public road and ample ground for siding accommodation. Bat these arrangements had scarcely been | completed when Provincial Governments ! were abolished, and the Board applied to i the General Government to make the siding, explaining their understanding ! with the late Provincial Government, and showing the great necessity for the work. When, tn tho astonishment of the Hoard, the Government declined to make the siding, the Waitaki County Council took the matter np, and unanimously made an urgent representation to the Government to have the siding constructed before the ! grain season. As yet there is no appearance of any such thing as.a-siding at * Whitstonc, and the. people hn*e to cart ; their grain to Oamaru along the road, ; which runs almost side-by-side with the i railway. It was a sight this season I to see the long lines of dray* loaded with I corn plodding along the road with only a i wire fence between them and a railway ; practically inaccessible to the district from ! which the grain came for want of a siding, i It seems to us absurd that the settlers of ' a district should so lortg have to agitate for a railway siding at a place where it is well known to be so much wanted. It* ; the case of a branch railway such as the i Waiareka, which is simply a feeder tapping >a large farming district, w-e should expect : the Government to do what they could to : render the railway fit to carry the grain lof the district to the port. We know that | the Waiareka railway carries a great deal i of i;rain, and, for a branch line, pays well. | But that is no reason why it should not l carry a great deal more and pay a great I deal better. We trust the Government 1 will see it 3 way to have thi3 siding constructed at once.