Our Railways.

Otago Witness, Issue 1499, 7 August 1880, Page 21

Our Railways.

THE OTAGO CENTRAL LINE. MEETING OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE! A meeting of the Chamber of Commerce was held in Wain's Hotel on Tuesday afternoon, to consider th» Otago Central Railway Bill now before the General Assembly. The president (Mr E. B. Cargill,) was im the chair, and there were also present : Messrs Bell r Watson, Begg, Eva, Burt, Guthrie, Leary, Austin, Heeles, Rattray, Ashcroft, Scoular, Jones, Mackerras, Gillies, Turnbull, Thomson, J. Cargill, Lewis, and H, Houghton (secretary). I The Chairman said the meeting had been called to consider the question of the Otago Central railway, as referred to in the report of the Public Works Commissioners. He read a series of resolutions passed by the Committee of the Chamber on 25th May last, and forwarded to the Government, and also to the Commissioners. Along with the resolutions extracts from the evidence of Mr Blair, the chief engineer, Mr Macandrew, Mr M'Kerrow, and others had been forwarded. Since then the Chamber had heard nothinguntil the report of the Commission had made its appearance, a report whioh was of a very sweeping nature. Whilst in the present position of Colonial finance they must be prepared for a delay in some lines for a time, yet there were circumstances in connection with the recommendations regarding this line that made it incumbent on the Chamber to make a strong recommendation. The meeting would be aware that great expense had alreadybeen gone to over part of the line, and that thei Colony was committed to an expenditure of £100,000. Yet the recommendations of the Commissioners wereso sweeping as to includo the abandonment of the part of the line on -which the money had been expended. (He read the recommendation of the Commissioners which was greeted with "Oh's" from several members.) There might be, and probably was, a difference of opinion as to beginning the line, but that question was discussed and decided some time ago; and now that the formation was carried through the worst portion of the country, the proposal to abandon it would scarcely commend itself to any section of the public. There was another point in the Commissioners' recommendations that deserved attention, and that was the suggestion to alter the route to the interior to that by way of Livingstone and Naseby. After all that had been done, such a proposal was a monstrous one, and would be bound to weaken the effect of the report in every candid mind. Putting aside every feeling of jealousy, the people of Otago were entitled to claim that communication with the interior should be established direct from the largest centre, and not trom a point 70 miles up the coast. Those, to his mind, were the merits of the question, and the Chamber had been called together to consider resolutions framed by the Committee^ which would give a very strong expression of opinion. Before sitting down, the speaker read a telegram he had received from Mr Vincent Pyke, as follows : — "Mean to make onslaught railway report. Would strongly urge deputation come, if Dunedin not to be nuffed out in favour of Oamaru." Mr Mackbhras proposed the following 1 resolutions : — " This Chamber views with alarm and distrust the report of the Royal Commission on Railways, in so far as reference is made in the report to the Otago Central railway. Ist. 'The Chamber views the report with the utmost alarm, inasmuch as it recommends that this central railway should be altogether abandoned, and that in the face (a) of the amount of monoy already expended in its construction— about £100,000; and (&) in the face of the unexampled care with which all the preliminary inquiries and survej-s were made and brought under the notice of Parliament before the construction of this railway was sanctioned.' 2nd. 'This Chamber views the report with the utmost distrust, inasmuch as it clearly indicates a desire to recommend that the railway connection with th& interior of this Provincial District and the seaboard should be by an extension of the Livingstone branch to Naseby— a route already ascertained to bo beset by far greater engineering difficulties than that by Strath. Tnieri, besides running through a much inferior tract of country,' 3rd. 'That as soon as the Strath-Taiori line reaches the Suttoa §ti'Q»m it will begin to open up

land for sale and settlement ; it is extremely desirable, therefore, that the construction should he proceeded with to this point as speedily as possible, when sufh : cient land could be sold to carry it on to the Taieri Lake, as provided for in the schedule of the Public Works Appropriation Act, 1879.' 4th. 'The Chamber expresses the earnest hope that the Government will refuse to give effect to the recommendation in the report in so far as this raUway is concerned; and that they will, on the contrary, continue its construction as speedily as the state of the Colonial finances will allow. He had been surprised at tho Teport of the Commissioners. They said that in Strath-Taien there was only a small proportion of land fit for agricultural purposes, and that it was far too limited to afford encouragement in going to an expense for railway construction, and they also said that after personal examination they had to recommend the abandonment of the line. Now it was well known that from the Taieri Lake Bide the Commissioners only ame as far as the s Hyde Gorge-that consequently they never reached StiathTaieri at all ; and that from Dunedin they looped out to Mullocky Gully and back m a day. Hot, thcie fore, they were fit to judge as to Pettier the uulway would open up country, or was a proper one for con Bt Mrt° E o:K in a speech of considerable length. They -were met that day, he said, to consider .one of the most extia^ anf cSr e fe TXX*lfP^orise^bv the Legislature, the money had been approthat the gentlemen forming the Commission however honourable and well-intentioned they might be, were no better informed in the matter of railwaj'construction than the average run of business men, and therefore their opinion was not to be held of so much va ue as that of experts. Now what did experts say of this line -those who had made a minute and practical survey of its route and the adjoining country? Even of the first 25 miles Mr Blair, while admitting that it had a formidable look, said it was not i really difhcult country to make a railway through. After the 25 miks had been gone through, Mr Blair said a beautiful country was opened up, containing 480,000 acres of agricultural land at present in the hands of the Crown ; that the line terminated in the valley of the Upper Clutha, giving access to a great extend of land at Wanaka and Hawea Lakes, and perhaps even giving access to the West Coast ; whilst from Cromwell an easy route existed by way of thcLindis to the Waitaki Plains, so favourably spoken of by the Commissioners. The speaker also quoted portions of the evidence given before the Committee of the Assembly on the matter. He said a notable feature as to the land to be opened up was that it was in the hands of the Crown, wherefore no large amount would be needed for compensation. The gradients and rock cuttings were, according to Mr Blair, easier than on the main line, which applied even to those in the first 25 miles. Mr Blair's evidence was supported by Mr J T. Thomson, Mr M'Kerrow, and other experts. And was the opinion of such professional men to be ignored and the recommendation of the Commissioners, involving the abandonment of works which had cost £100 0007 to be adopted? Another point which should not be lost sight of was that this line was a guaranteed line Mr Macandrew had stated in evidence before the Committee that 360,000 acres had been set apart towards the expense of constructing the line; and it was also in evidence regarding the worth of the land that at that time the total quantity to be opened up by it was valued at £1,800,000. That was with railway communication in prospect only.. He read from the report brought up by tho Committee of the House that, bo strongly were they impressed with the desirability of the line, they went so far as to recommend that the works should be begun at either end and m the centre. Upon that report the House had acted, and now that the most difficult part of the country had been got through, was it reasonable to ask that the line snould be abandoned ? And for what 1 No member of the Chamber, he felt sure, wished to embarrass the Government, and if the Commiesioners had merely recommended that the worK should be postponed, no one could hove urged that there were no reasonable grounds for the recom-mendation.-(Hear, hear.) But they went further, and said that the undertaking should never have been beffun, which was a reflection not only on the engineers but on the honesty and intelligence of the Committee of the House. Were they to submit to the ipse dixit of a few gentlemen who had ga loped through the country, and to abandon a work which would benefit not Dunedin or Otago merely, but the wholo Colony? But the Commissioners had made another suggestion, which raised the question they had all considered settled long ago-that, namely, between Oamaru and Dunedin It there was the slightest reason to believe that the people of thl interior would bo better accommodated by Oamaru being their outlet, then Dunedm would have to submit ; but, on the contrary, all the evidence went to show that Dunedin was the best and most natural port. He thought they were justified in ursring that the recommendation of the Commissioners should have no weight with the Government. In i America the idea that prevailed in regard to railway \ construction was that in no case should railways run parallel at a closer distance than 30 miles, each railway being deemed capable of accommodating the country for 15 miles on each side of it. Well, here was a railway designed to accommodate the whole interior, and open up the country on each side to a very large extent. He concluded by repeating that the Chamber had good grounds for disagreeing with the report.— (Applause.) Mr A C. Begg said he had listened with pleasure to the remarks of Mr Bell, and agreed with a great deal of what he said. But he would suggest that the resolutions, as read, reflected a little too strongly on the intentions of the Commissioners. The Chamber should guard itself against in any way impugning the good faith and integrity of the , Commissioners. The second section of the resolutions might be modified, he thought, by clearing out the "distrust" portion of it, especially in reference to the ' Livin"stone-Naseby line, which they did not recommend should be carried through. They especially stated that in the meantime no line should be taken to Maniototo. He quite agreed that it was absurd to talk about continuing the line Livingstone to Naseby, for it would have to go over Dansey's Pass, across the Bhoulder of Mount Domett, and so forth, where a railway was not possible. And it was also absurd to throw away £100,000.-(Hear, hear.) But they should not urge the Government to go on and finish the line. They liiiffht take a lesson from the experience of another inland line-that from Clarksville > to Lawrence When it was contemplated they had heard a great" deal about the country to be opened up, and how it would pay, and it had been constructed m obedience to the pressure.^A Voice : 'Whose pressure ?")-That of the residents in that portion of O ta g o .-(A Voice: "J. C. Brown's," and laughter.) —Well it had now been running for five years, and every £100 of receipts entailed £110 of expenses. Yet they had been told it would pay handsomely, just as was said about the Otago Central line. And he reminded them that much of the wool and the pasBenirer traffic which would come by the Otago Central line now came over the Lawrence one, which 'nevertheless did not pay.-(Mr Asiicrom : Too low rates )-The Lawrence line had cost £240,000, and that meant that the taxpayers of this overtaxed Colony had to contribute £14,000 a year to give the Tuapeka people a line to their door. Beyond StrathTaieri he contended, the land was, as Mr M'Kerrow termed it, of a mixed character, and he was quite sure that if there were a railway to Maniototo to-morrow they could not sell a large quantity of land at a good raving figure. Even alongside the line from Dunedin Llnveiwgill£3anacrecould not be got for better agricultural land than existed on the Maniototo Plain?. However, to sum up, the drift of his remarks was just this that the Chamber should not urge on the Government the immediate prosecution of the hue ; Its estimated cost was somewhere about £600,000, which meant a further annual burden on the taxpayers of the °t"i Ea™ h°ad° listened to Mr Bcgg.with a little surprise, because although he had given his own views as to the character of the country through which the line passed, he had placed no reasons before the meeting in support of his conclusions. As to the report of the Commissioners, it appeared to be based on evidence entirely different from any that had been produced before on the subject, either to the Provincial Council or to the Iloubc of Representatives. He emoted from the evidence of Mr Blair and Mr M'Kerrow, and said he could not conceive what kind of evidence the Commissioners had proceeded upon.

Mr R Gillies also commented adversely on Mr Begn-'s remarks. He quite agreed that, viewed in the light of the financial position of the Colony to-day, the railway should not have been commenced ; but at the time of its commencement the light was very different. It was thought that the railways were paying magnificently, and that all the country had to do to progress was to go on extending them in every direction. Now, however, they must admit that they might well have been content without the railway for a year or two. He would have agreed with the Commissioners if they had stopped when #»y suggested that the completion of the line should

be postponed. But he contended that they could do nothing- else than distrust the Commissioners when they examined the report a little further, and read I what they recommended about the Livingstone-Naseby line More than all other lines in New Zealand it was one that should never have been undertaken, or proiected even. Ho knew every inch of the ground it ran through. The land was in the hands of three private individuals, or he might say two ; the line ran through a narrow gorge, and at no point was it more distant than four miles from a parallel line.— (Hear, hear.) Yet the Commissioners coolly said that that line should be completed and extended, and that in the face of the fact that all the evidence he had over heard of characterised the line as an impossible one. They urged that the Otago Central line should be abandoned for one like this. Surely, therefore, there was ample cause for distrust, and justiflcat'on for the language of the resolutions. If there was one word more than another in the resolutions he agreed with, it was the word " distrust."— (Hear, hear,) As to the Otago Central, he had no hesitation in saying that it was one of the most important lines ever projected in New Zealand. It was the only line that ever could connect the West with the East Coast. He allowed that he did not think the time had arrived when it should be constructed, but when the time did arrive there was no other line that was of so great importance. In regard to opening up land for settlement, in regard to connecting the East and West Coasts, in regard to the conveyance of timber from well-supplied districts to those more sparsely supplied, and in regard to aiding in the opening up of the auriferous deposits of the country, there was no line that could compare with it. It was the great in : terior artery. He had no fear that the Strath-Taien route would ever be supplanted by any other. He had every confidence that the Legislature would never depart from what had been decided on. There was just one thing he might add, and that was that they should not he too severe on the Commissioners' report till they had the full copy of it, for he had reason to believe that the epitome of it published scarcely gave a fair notion of the original. Still, there was quite sufficient in it to justify the use of the word " distrust."—(Applause.) Mr J Ashcroft could confirm what Mr Gillies had said as to the closeness of the Ngapara line to the Livingstone one, and he could add that the people of Oamaru were not at all wishful for the completion of the Livingstone line, as it could not he brought out at a satisfactory level. As to what Mr Begg had suggested about not too strongly condemning the Commissioners, it should be remembered that those gentlemen had not been sparing in their condemnation of Mr Blair, who, after a most painstaking survey of seven different routes, was now pooh-poohed, so that in condemning the Commissioners the Chamber would be doing to them only what they had done to Mr Blair. The report of Messrs Thornton and Bull, the engineers who made the survey of tho Livingstone line was, that they could not get a less gradient than 1 in 45, that the line would reach an altitude of nearly 3000 feet, and that a tunnel of a mile in length would be required. The character of the Livingstone line was best shown by Mr Blair's words, for he said that of all the routes he examined the Strath-Taien was the best and the Maerewhenua the worst. In regard to what Mr Begg had said about the Lawrence line not paying, the Chamber should remember the rates that were charged on the branch lines. On the lines along the coast a rate was necessary that would enable railway traffic to compete with that by steamer; but that didj not apply to inland lines, on which, in tho matter of charges, people fared better than ever they had ihoped or prayed for.— (Hear, hear.) He felt that no great hardship would be caused if the rates were doubled ; and without disclosing confidence he might say that it was decided they should be increased to an extent that would make the lines payable. Therefore any comparisons with the Lawrence line were illusory, as on the Strath-Taien line such rates could be put on as would ensure its paying. There was some misunderstanding as to the portion of the railway really before Parliament. Only a line from Chain Hills to Taieri Lake was at present before the House, which was estimated to cost £500,000, of which sum £125,000 was appropriated for expenditure. In regard to the quality of the land at Sutton Stream, it was stated that land would be reached which would bring from £1 or £1 10s up to £A or £5 an acre. Mr Begg might smile, but he must remember that there were men in the country as well able as himself to form an opinion on such a matter. Indeed, he might say that the conflict of evidence was quite as great as the conflict of interests Mr G. Turnbum. thought the resolutions scarcely sufficiently brought out the fact that the Chamber did not wish to press unduly on the Government as to the completion of the line. The principal point was that this route was the best. He cordially supported the resolutions, and thought " distrust " a mild term to apply to the Commissioners' report. In order to bring out more clearly the feeling of the Chamber, as he understood it, he moved that the following be substituted for section 3 of the resolutions as read :— " 3rd— That the Chamber has no desire to press any demand for immediate expenditure on this lino of railway beyond what can be prudently appropriated in the present state of the Colonial finances, but would urge most emphatically that there should be no departure from the decision arrived at after a most full and careful investigation of the several suggested lines of communication with the interior, when the preference was almost unanimously accorded to the Otago Central over all others ; and would further urge that the portion already under construction should be completed and the line continued as far as Sutton Stream, by which a considerable extent of good land would be opened, and thereafter continued from time to time as funds were made available from land sales or otherwise." Mr Ashcroft seconded the proposal for the substitution of this amendment, and it was carried without opposition. „ „ Mr Rattray then moved— "That a copy of these resolutions be forthwith wired to the Hon. the Minister of Public Works, Mr Vincent Pyke, and the City members, with a request that they support the views of the Chamber as set forth therein." Seconded by Mr J. CaimhiiL, and carried. This concluded the business of the meeting.