The Opunake Times. TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1896. MIDLAND RAILWAY.

Opunake Times, Volume IV, Issue 158, 7 January 1896, Page 2

The Opunake Times. TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1896. MIDLAND RAILWAY.

There is great jubilation over the success of the Government in the arbitration case with the Midland Railway Company, on the part of the Government supporters. We do not see, however, anything to be very joyous about. As far as it has gone it has proved a white elephant, and the further they carry it the worse it will likely become. It was a mad-brained piece of business in the first instance ever undertaking such a scheme, but political exigencies, in the shape of the support of the Canterbury members at the time, demanded that the work should be undertaken as the price of their support. The Government had not the hardihood to propose that the colony should build it, but allowed it to be floated on the London market as a mine of wealth for the British investor. According to the claim set forth by the Company the sum of £1,584,900 had been spent up to the time of the seizure of the line, which, under the award, less the amount recovered from land selection, is lost to the Company by confiscation. If the line were of any present or probable future value this would be a very nice windfall for the colony, but according to all the evidence adduced it would have been much better to have left the whole thing in the hands of the Company, and merely to have declared all further connection "with the Company off. In tbe face of the evidence it is hard to understand why the Government seized the line, unless it is to be held out as a bait to the Canterbury and West Coast members, to secure their allegiance, with promises of what may be done to push it on, provided they remain good boys and vote as they are told, to keep their friends in power. The British investors who have found the money will not look very favorably on the Government’s action in thus depriving them of all value for it, aud we should not be at all surprised, in the light of recent events, to find that if a New Zealand loan were put on the market a change of Government would be needful before it would be floated.