THE RAILWAY AUTHORISATION BILL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2330, 27 October 1898, Page 12

THE RAILWAY AUTHORISATION BILL.

*■ (Fbom Ouk Own Cop.eespondent.) WELLINGTON, October 20. The Railway Authorisation Bill was brought down to-day by Governor's message. Among the extensions and additions authorised in the bill are a siding for Inchvailey station, on the Palmerston-Waihemo railway, to the limestone quarry, length 2i miles ; also a siding irom a point near the Mosgiel station to the Mosgiel ballast quarry, length, about 27 chains j and an extension of tho Waipahi-Heriotburn branch railway in the direction of Roxburgh for a distance of about 6 miles. When the bill was introduced there was a chorus of requests from different members for money for their own pet lines in different parts of tho colony, and the Otago members were not slow to voice their grievances. Mr Fraser, for instance, made an emphatic protest against money being spent on unauthorifeJ. lines until those lines already authorised by Parliament had been dealt with. Money had been borrowed for certain lines, but was taken and applied elsewhere. This was nothing short of deliberate swindling. He cited the case of the "Waikaia-Switzers line. The maprf on which the settlers wera induced to take up their land showed that this lino was to be made, but though the formation had been completed the rails had never been laid, and the settlers were deceived. Mr Carncross said that many of the line 3 referred to would not pay axle grease, but he had in his district a line that really ought to be made — viz., from Saddle Hill along the Brighton road, close up to the district represented by Mr Jas. Allen. It wmild only ci.,t ibout £12,000 or £15,000, and would pay the colony handsomely. It would lead to what would become the fashionable seaside resort for the whole of Dunedin. At present tho fashionable resort was St. Clair, but that was being washed away. The proposed lino would also open up lime and coal fields. Air Kelly urged the construction of the OrepukiWaiau extension line. In a very few years, he said, the whole timber supply for Otago and Southland would have to come from the Waiau. The Southland supplies would be exhausted within the next six or seven years. Twelve or 13 miles only had to be made, and it would pay better than any other extension in the whole of the Middle Island. They would then get timber that would supply their wants for the next 100 years.

— A thousand tons of soot settle yearly on the 110 square miles of London's area.