THE MIDLAND RAILWAY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15707, 8 March 1913, Page 8

THE MIDLAND RAILWAY.

The argument by which the Minister of Customs supports the proposal of the Government to push on the construction of the Otira tunnel as rapidly as the funds at its disposal will allow is, at its best, one that is not specially applicable to the Midland railway. It is simply this, that the railway, of which the construction lias, as Mr Fisher says, been costly and the maintenance has been and will be expensive, cannot be profitably employed unless the lines that have been laid from both ends are connected through the completion of the tunnel. The Midland railway is, however, only one of a number of uncompleted lines of railway in the dominion that cannot be expected at the present stage of their construction to furnish any adequate return upon the expenditure which lias been incurred upon them. •And there is no sufficient reason why, if there is to be any suspension of railway undertakings, as a consequence of the depletion of the Public Works Fund and of tho difficulty of raising money on favourable terms, the Midland railway should be selected as one of those that should be pushed on. It is, on the contrary, the work that may be singled out as that one among the unfinished lines about the construction of which there is the least urgency. It is not now pretended that the railway when completed will yield a return that will meet the interest on the cost of construction. It is generally admitted that the line will be an unprofitable one. For a great part of its length it will traverse country that will not provide it with any freight whatever, and when the oost of construction.' and the heavy maintenance charges are taken into consideration the impossibility of the traffic it will develop being sufficient to make the line interest-earning becomes readily perceptible. To push'on with the prosecution of this work at a time when, through the exigencies of finance, there is a danger that the construction of lines that will certainly be profitable may ba delayed would be a distinct mistake. Though it is doubtless neoessary that the Midland railway must bo completed now tlmt so much money has been sunk upon it, the t('ork is one that might, with great advantage to the public, be suspended until such time as the

Coverament is more liberally supplied with funds for expenditure upon public undertakings.