EAST COAST RAILWAY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18335, 1 March 1934, Page 14

EAST COAST RAILWAY

(To the Editor of the Herald.) Sir, —One of the most amazing statements I have ever read was published in your issue of Monday, In it, Mr. C. 0. Morse purports to give sound and convincing reasons for the decision of the Wairoa, railway conference. I venture to assert that if Mr. Morse had put the position to the conference as lie now enunciates it, no such attitude would have been taken up as was agreed to by the Gisborne delegates. Two things are apparent, firstly that the Gisborne delegates had it put across them iu no uncertain measure, and secondly that the Southern delegates while gaining their point at the expense of the Gisborne delegation, are living in a fool’s paradise of their own creation. If the Wairoa estimates of revenue are correct, and Mr. Morse says that they got down to a “tin-tacks basis,” then according to Mr. Clayton’s published remarks made at Wairoa, the revenue anticipated is on a par with that from the Taneatuu line. Taneatua earned £568 per mile, and it cost just on £IOOO per mile in working expanses disregardin'' interest, to achieve that result. Hence, on their own iigures, an imposing delegation would proceed to Vveliington and say in effect, “Lo, we have labored and produced figures . which show a section of lino on which the Government is absolutely certain to make a loss on running expenses, yea, even a section as bad as Taneatua, and verily we prithee build us and complete this line so that such losses shall be made thereon as will ensure that the people of‘Gisborne, who sleep the sleep of the dull-witted, shall never, not even in their children’s lifetime, see anything remotely resembling a railway line. ' , I had hopes that the farmers as a body would pull their weight, but apart from the motion passed by tho Sheepowners’ Federation, no action is being taken. The Farmers’ Union, awakened momentarily from somnolence, calmly asserts that “we will get our railway.' That, sir, is all they know, and they will never get it by lying back and complacently smirking in self-satisfied indulgence, unless tne author of the state, ment, who has recently been to Wellington, has inside information. If a combined delegation.takes its case to Wellington as at present constituted, then kiss the railway good-bye for ever. On the other hand, using no other material than the Gisborne reports, which Mr. Morse in his ignorance derides, if the whole case is properly put up and fought out, iio sane Government can refuse to seriously entertain the Ssition. The local reports blow the ay Board sky high, prove that the line as a whole is a commercial proposition, and clearly reveal the palpable blunder that the joint committee would have perpetuated in all seriousness. What 1 suggest is that the local committee immediately arranges an appointment with the resporisible Minister by telegram, and proceeds to Wellington accompanied by representatives of the farmers organisations and the County Councils, to put the case for the completion of the line as a whole. If that is not done, and immediately, then further progress is impossible, as if the railway is completed only to Wairoa, it will never proceed further. Why should Napier interests and other subterranean influences be allowed to get away with a dust-throwing campaign, well engineered 1 but if we are awake designed to failure? —Yours, etc., SUPERPHOSPHATE.