Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, FRIDAY, DEC. 9, 1904. RAILWAY BUILDING IN NEW ZEALAND.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 10227, 9 December 1904, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, FRIDAY, DEC. 9, 1904. RAILWAY BUILDING IN NEW ZEALAND.

Southern papers are severely criticising Mr Sedidon's glowing lieroics at the Otago Central celebrations. The Preiniier, m his address, referred witlt tones of apparent satisfaction to the fact that this was both the silver jubilee of his political life and of the construction of the railway. The first contract of the line was let m 1879. Ho remembered 1 entering Parliament m the days of the late Vincent Pyke. He thought that .the Central I Otago people were the most hopeful people to be found m< any part of the colony. One of the golden - pages, as far as Otago was concerned, was the building of the Central Railway step by step. He thought that the completion of tho railway should be marked by an annual observance day throughout Otago. The Christchurch Press wondiers that Mr Seddon -was not ashamed to show liis face at Omakau. That he should not only appear there, but congratulate the people on the progress made with this remarkable, railway, and actually bike ciiedit for the general policy of the Government .m regard! to railway constractuny, only shows what an. adept hia is m the art of Muff, and how easily the public are imposed! upon. As designed, tlie railway is supposed! to run from the South Island Main Trunk line to Lake Hawea, a distance of 188 miles. Of this Jiength. the. distance actually opened, including the section just added 1 , is, roughly speaking, 100 miles. In other words, the Government, working for a quarter of a century, has completed/ only four miles a year of a railway which, avowedly, at any rate, was undertaken because it was wanted m the intereet-s of settlement, and because it was likely to pay! How many times, we wonder, says our contemporary, have the sleepers rotted away and had to . be reiaid m the interval ? Row much money has been eaten up merely by the interest on the capital lying idls in> the incompleted or otherwise, unproductive sections of the railway, always going to be taken to "a paying point," but never reaching it? Mr Sedfdon- proudly asserts that 25 years hence the Ministry of the dlaj n-ifi be found carrying out the present construction policy m the same way. To all I appearances, also, judging from the rate, of progress m the past, it will be another 25 years before tho Otago Central Railway is completed, i If any railway company m the world were to construct a i railway on £he same principles, would ' not its directors be considered 1 fit subjects for Bedlami ? The Press goes ou to assert what has even been admitted by some Otago people that the Otago Central railway is a political railway that would never have been undertaken by any sane company on commercial grounds. But the soundfcst isiilway undertakings m the colony, it says, are constructed on the same dilatory principle. The North Island Trunk Railway, 210 miles m length, was authorised m 1884, some 20 years ago.* If it had been constructed by a private company, it would probably have been finished m five years, and would, m the opinion of every uribiassedi expert, be returning a large profit to the Government at the present time. It has been stated! o» competent authority that the timber opened up would have been guffiL ci6nt to pay for the capital cost of the I

line. More than enough money lias already bewi flittered away on it to finish the railway, had it been expended m a busiiiiwss-liive fashion. Yet what are the facts? Little more than one-luilf of tlie enure length is constructed, and the Minister, evidently m despair oi its ever being finished, proposed m. the hist Tublic Works Statement that a. service road should be completed) from tlie railhead to Raetihi, so as to join the coach road there! To all appearances, it will be another 20 years bvlore it is finished, and it as quito within thu bounds to say that it will cost at least tlireu or four times- as much as it would have cost had it been constructed! by a private cornpuny. Take again tlie Cheviot railway, a, line admittedl by all to be urgently wanted, andl likeily to pay. It is now live years since it was authordsed,and a paltry 15 miles luis been opened! for tiiilHe. In otlier words, a line unequalled m New Zealand for easiness of construction has been carried on at the rate of übuut three miles per annum. "It is hardly possible," says the Press, "to I estimate such progress with the naked eye. In a line of any length, as m the cose of tlie- Midland, the Otago Central, or the Nortli Island! Main Trunk, it means tluit whjlo one end is being pushed forward with tortoise>-like caution, the otltor end, rottiug and rusting from want of use, must be re-laid. Mr Seddon thinks all this is tho acme of wisdom. He lauds the co-operative system up to the skies because under that plan there is 'no running of one man by another,' ami therefore there is no danger of the work beiiig canned! on too fast. He is actually proud 1 of tf» fact tluat while the North Island! Main Trunk line and the Cheviot Railway are being kept back m this exasperating fashion the public money is being wasted' on no less than '19 independent railways' m different part of the colony, all of them being carried out, or ratlter played with, m the same lunatic fashion. Are the people of New Zealand really so mad as Mr Seddon would) make them out to be? We sincerely trust that this is not the case, and that at the next elecion they will insist on our whole, public works policy being reorganised 1 and placed upon a rational- basis."