WASTEFUL RAILWAY EXPENDITURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14898, 29 July 1910, Page 2

WASTEFUL RAILWAY EXPENDITURE.

A INDICTMENT. (Faost Oua Own Correspondent J WELLINGTON, July 28. Speaking on Mr Massey's amendment in the Budget debate this afternoon, Mr Scott (Tuapeka) remarked upon the apparent disinclination of the Government supporters to debate the' amendment, Regarding the land issue, 'he believed thoroughly and firmly in every proposal in the amendment. Those' who used the land should have the right to.say under what .tenure. they, should hold it. He strongly advocated a more progressive land policy than the Government had yet given them. There was 110 uee. saying that the leasehold was equal to the free- . hold. The freeholders in the House were the men who were on the land and working it; the leaseholders, on the 'other hand, were mainly, the city men, who had nothing to do ..with the land. The Government should for reading land before putting it up to ballot. The co-operative system had been an-ap-palling failure in his district. It" was stated that the Otago Central railway was only paying; 6s; per cent., but lie would riot have been surprised if' it'paid nothing at all in view of the wakeful expenditure in connection with its con-, struction. The. amount, of money which, the. line -cost- to construct .from .Middlemarch to Clyde would have been - sufficient to" carry'the line on to'Hawea under the ; ! sraall;"contract system.' He could give many instances of wasteful expenditure : iii regard' to the line. ' 'At 'lTough Ridge' the station was built at a place where thousands ,of load:* ; of iriiiterial had to W 1 thrown' in' order., to make, up 'the' site,. whereas if the building had been erected half a mile away a suitable site could have been secured. At Ida Valley, the expenditure was simply ruinous. An extensive building, turntable, etc,, had been put up and then shifted bodily when the roilway went 011. He had-heard that £40,000 had been'sunk in' that railway station alone, and he had no reakm to doubt it. Yet the Government said the Otago Central line did not pay. The wonder was that under such circumstances it ever did pay even the 6s per cent, credited to it.

On the Lawrence-Roburgh line there had also been great extravagances. Embankments had been filled in to a, height of 20ft. over concrete tube culverts, and afterwards these pipes were tifnnelled out because they were ; too small, and other, culverts were put hi. That had gone on right along the line. A few months ago he noticed that they were relaying the rails pn a constructed piece of the line between Lawrence .and Beaumont, and, on asking the reason, he was told that the wrong gauge had been used. In another place they were widening cuttings by tumbling the stuff down on to the ground where two men were shovelling it up into the trucks again in the meet primitive way. Was that, he asked, railway construction? No wonder; the railways did not pay. The waste of money and the bungling incapacity displayed were something deplorable.

Mr Scott referred to the fact that the late Mr Seddon had 1 stated that the Law-rence-Roxburgh line would pay, whereas Sir Joseph.Ward said it would not pay, but there had', been no proof that it would not pay. But why should it be stopped and other lines, such as the Midland one on the W«et Coast and one in the far north, that it was admitted would not pay, be continued.' The Minister of Rail--1 ways himself said that one of these lines would not pa.y, and yet,he (Mr Scott) ventured to predict that on the eve of the next elect-ion the cry of.the unemployed would be heard, , and 100 or 500 men would appear on the Lawrence-Roxburgh railway works, . •

Mr Scott went on to advocate some plan for saving valuable agricultural ■ land from destruction by dredging and sluicing.