THE PARNASSUS-WHARANUI GAP.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20799, 19 August 1929, Page 13

THE PARNASSUS-WHARANUI GAP.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —When writing a little while back I quoted the public debt as £251,000,000. Since then the official return gives it as £204,000,000. Mr Mason says that I distort facts. I simply stated the amount of the total. Mr Mason seems to be able to show that we are making a profit on some of this borrowed money, and that half of it is interest-bearing. I hope that is a fact. My purpose of writing is to try and hinder an addition to the heavv load of non-interest bearing debt, and hinder the construction of railway connections at an enormous cost to be run at a loss of £160,000 per year on one line alone, where the people are well served by motor lorries and buses, being only 38 miles from a railhead. If the money thus wasted were used in making roads and cutting all this Marlborough land into blocks for settlement, there would not be one settler less, though, this proposed connection between Parnassus and Wharanm were left unfinished. The millions which it is proposed to expend in constructions would be available for a prosperous settlement, without adding further to our huge public debt of £264,000,000. fepeaking at Hawera Sir Joseph Ward said: ‘ The policy of the Government was that !t would not undertake any railway which would not return at least interest on the capital outlay/’ It seems doubtful m this case, and in that of some of the other lines also, notably the GisborneNapier and Matahora-Tanatua lines.—l am, etc., „ . G. Stringer. Oamaru, August 17.