The Midland Railway.

Opunake Times, Volume IV, Issue 163, 24 January 1896, Page 3

The Midland Railway.

The Sydney Bulletin sums up an article on the Midlandrailway arbitration as billows: —The situation of the Maoriland Government in the matter is now an interesting one. It has got 82 miles of railroad in three disconnected scraps, and to make them of any serious value it must complete the great line itself. As the object of the first agreement with the company was to avoid making the line itself, this is a serious matter. The company’s agreement has blocked settlement in Canterbury, Westland, and Nelson for ten years, and has lost the Treasury ten years’ land revenue over 6,000,000 acres of country ; and, in consequence of this reservation, there is still practically no population along the route' and hardly any traffic. The State has paid nearly £400,000 in land grants for its 82 miles of line—only 75 of which are really in working order — or £SOOO per mile, which is very little, if any, less than the amount for which it could have built and owned the road at present rates. Even in the old extravagant days of high wages and bad management, and lavish expenditure for land resumptions, Maoriland railways only cost £7700 per mile, and with low wages, cheap material, economy, and practically no land resumptions to he paid for, the Midland line, so far as it is built, should have cost no more than the State’s present outlay. In addition to this, these three scraps of road purport to be mortgaged for £825,000 to the British debenture holders, and the position of the Government in regard to their claims is a difficult problem. If the claims hold good, then the line will represent a national outlay of £15,000 per mile. And, as a further trouble, the seizure by the State is only a partial and ineffectual measure. All the Government is authorised to do is to run the bit of line as the company’s trustee; if it more than pays expenses the company gets the surplus; if it doesn’t pay expenses the loss can’t be recovered from the company, which is utterly lost and insolvent. To acquire actual possession it will probably have to pay for the work in cash after already paying in land, and before any definite result is arrived at there will almost certainly be more costly litigation. Probably the debenture holders will foreclose on the company’s interest in its little scrap of iron rail, and then the State, and the company, and the debenture holders, and the miscellaneous creditors, will fight a quadrangular duel and ultimately arrive at some kind of a settlement.