THE OTAGO CENTRAL RAILWAY

Otago Witness, Issue 2744, 17 October 1906, Page 10

THE OTAGO CENTRAL RAILWAY

If ire could suppose that the temporary stoppage at Clyde of the construction of the Otago Central railway would have any effect so disastrous as that which the petition forwarded to the Premier from and on behalf of the settlers in the Upper Clutha represents as likely to occur, we should hesitate before we expressed approval of any interruption- in the work. But it is extravagant to suggest that the adoption of the coarse which the Government contemplates will render nugatory the efforts of the residents in the district named to found homes for themselves. It may be questioned, indeed, whether the suspension of the construction of the railway at Clyde in order that the Public Works Department may be enabled for a time to devote a larger amount of attention to, and to increase its expenditure upon, other lines in the provincial district will in the long run be prejudicial at all to the Otago Central line. That the- railway has not had even the barest justice done to it in the past is absolutely incontrovertible. The return for which Mr William Fraser, alert to the interests of his constituents, has asked will show, in fact, that there is a remarkable margin between the amount that has been appropriated in the aggregate for the line and the total that has been expended upon it. Probably there isno line in the colony which has suffered bo much through the neglect on the part of Ministers to spend the sums placed at their disposal by Parliament- But the grievance which the settlers have on this score is to a large extent ascribable to the system that has been in vogue. For it must be recognised that the annual allocation of sums of money to the different public works in the colony is a delusion and a mockery, the persons who are concerned in the construction of the various lines being encouraged to expect an expenditure which, as a general rule, the Government has no intention of incurring. It j is not to be ignored, either, that where the vote for railway construction has, as is the case at the present time, to be distributed over as many as twenty different works, it is impossible to look for any satisfactory allocation for any one of these works, unless it should be generally acknowledged to be of a thoroughly national character. The North Island Main Trunk line is, it is freely j admitted, a line which should be exceptionally treated, and there is, we should think, no member of Parliament at the present time, whatever his constituency, who will not subscribe to the proposition that a sound policy demands a concentration of effort on that line in order that it may be completed. Moreover, when railway communication has been established in the course of two or three years' time between Auckland and Wellington, it will probably be then recognised by the Government that some other line must be selected for preferential attention. In such an event, there should be no question about the Otago Central line being accorded the exceptional treatment that is now being ' shown in the cafe of the northern trunk line. Priority of authorisation and the importance of the line alike entitle it to special consideration. And because we hope that, after a short stoppage at Clyde, the work on the Otago Central line will be resumed with a determination that a vigorous effort shall be made to complete it to its terminus we are able to acquiesce quite cheerfully in the decision of the Government to suspend operations temporarily when the railway shall have been carried into the Dunstan Valley. There is no one, we suppose, who will not admit that the line is likely to be • advanced more speedily if an expenditure of £100,000 is devoted to it in one year than if £35,000 were spent upon it in each of three years, and it is for development upon such lines as these that, we think, the friends of the Otago Central railway should agitate. In the meantime, however, we cannot be unmindful of the fact that there are two other -lines in the Otago provincial district which have claims, not so strong as that of the Otago Central, but still unquestionably strong, upon the consideration of the Public Works Department. If the amount that is now expended annually upon the Central railway were divided in suitable proportions for a year or two between the Catlins-Tahakopa and the Lawrence-Roxburgh lines to swell the' allocations which would ordinarily be devoted to these lines, and if the allocations wore honestly e±pended, the progress that would be made upon the railways in question would be distinctly encouraging to the districts affected. As, -for the reason we have mentioned, 57e do not think that the Otago Central

railway would be prejudiced to any appreciable degree, we are unable to take any exception to the proposal of the Government to ca# a temporary halt in the construction of the line at Clyde. But the representatives of Otago in Parliament must make it clear that the stoppage is to be purely temporary, that it is merely proposed in order that greater attention may during the period of the halt be bestowed upon the other Otago lines, and that the construction of the Central railway must be resumed at the earliest convenient date and then vigorously prosecuted to its completion.