Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERT EVENING. GISBORNE, THURSDAY. NOV. 14, 1907 MANAWATU RAILWAY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 11125, 14 November 1907, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERT EVENING. GISBORNE, THURSDAY. NOV. 14, 1907 MANAWATU RAILWAY.

The announcement m the Public Works Statement that the Government intend to take steps to acquire the Manawatu railway will be received with very general satisfaction from one end of the Dominion to the other. The course proposed is one that has been frequently urged on the Government by this journal and other newspapers, it being pointed out how anomalous and unbusinesslike it was for the State lines from New Plymouth and Napier to be acting as feeders to 'a privately-owned railway. The approaching completion of the North. Island Main Trunk railway, the whole of the traffic from which to and from Wellington will necessarily have to pass over the Mnnawatu line, makes the anomaly all the more glaringly apparent. The actual gap m the Main Trunk line is now not more than 24 miles, and by this time next year the rails from northern and southern ends should have been connected, the promise of the Minister for Public Works being that through Communication will be established before Christmas 1908. It is opportune, therefore, that the Government should serve upon the Manawatu Company the necessary twelve months' notice, a step which we understand from the announcement m the Statement will be taken forthwith. Under the provisions of The Railways Construction and Land Act, 1881, the

Government are empowered upon giving twelve months' notice to purcliase the railway at a price to be determined by arbitration, the award bebig that of three arbitrators, or any two of them, one chosen by the Governor, the other by the Company, and a third by the other two arbitrators. We gather from an observation made m the House by the Premier that the price to be paid will be somewhere m the neighborhood of one million pounds. According to the last .balance sheet of the Company the railway and rolling stock -were valued at ■£1,035,047, but of this amount £210,217 •is written off, leaving the balance-sheet ,value at £824,829. The railway has been maintained m splendid order, and if the Government secure it for one million pounds they will have made a very .fair bargain. The gross profits from the line last year amounted to £60,451, and these iwill be enormously increased when ; through trains from Auckland to Wellington are, running, besides which there' -would be a very considerable saving ;effected m the haulage expenses over the ; Rimutaka incline for a large volume of i traffic at present carried that way which j will naturally be taken via Manawatu when the railway comes into the Government's hands. The prospects therefore | are that a good profitable bargain can be made for the State without effecting any injustice upon the shareholders of the Manawatu Company. The concession of the right to build and work a railroad Avas made to them under certain fixed conditions, one of which was that the Government should have the right of purchase, arid for many years they have been allowed to enjoy as the fruit and just reward of their enterprise substantial profits from' the undertaking, to which, as has been previously pointed out, the State railways by acting •as feeders have materially contributed. .'■