SPECIAL PARLIAMENTARY.

Southland Times, Issue 3783, 6 August 1880, Page 3

SPECIAL PARLIAMENTARY.

[By Telegraph.] (prom our own correspondent.) Wellington, Thursday. The report of the Crown Lands Department has been laid on the table, and from it the following extracts on improvement of Crown lands are taken : — Woodend to Seaward Moss : This is an expanse of fully 40,000 acres of level land, stretching from Woodend, a station live miles from Invercargill en the Invercargill-Blufr. railway, across b -'tween the forest and coast line to Mataura river. It is a swampy, mossy country, with isolated pieces of dry land interspersed. There have been proposals from liins to time to utilise it, but nothing has \vt been done. As a beginning, a road was formed from Woodend by the Road Board for two miles along the edge of the bush, and this was continued on the line chosen by the Chief Surveyor and District Engineer tor three miles further, connecting two or three thousand acres of very fair improvable land. 1044 acres along the road line were surveyed into .eleven sections, and effered for deferred payments. It has all been taken up with the exception of three sections. By cutting drains and helping natural drainage and pushing the road forward a mile or two each season, an extensive area, which is literally a hewling wilderness, will eventually become an inhabited settled district. — Orepuki to Waifiu: This road or track is now being cleared and partly formed under direction of the Wallace County Council. It runs through about 12 miles of Crown lands forest, and connects the open country of Waiau Valley, near Merrivale, with Orepuki. The following is a summary of the conclusions arrived at by the Engineer-in-Charge, Middle Island, in his report upon the defective-constructed railway waggons: — That the statements made by me in my report of the 29th June, are (rue and correct in every particular; that no waggon built by contract in Dunedin was delivered in Cliri.st^hnrch in last year in faulty condition ; that no waggon built by contract anywhere in the Middle Island had to be almost rebuilt within six weeks ; that the only contract for waggons at Oamaru was one with McNab and Aimers, finished iv November, 1875; that the officers in tl.e Public Works Department are in no way responsible for tho work done in the railway workshops; that out of a total of 4000 waggons about 36 are alleged in general terms to be defec tive, and of these a specified description of defects is given in six cases; that the defects are chiefly caused by shrinkage of the unseasoned timber used in the constiuction of the waggons; that five of the six waggons in which the defects are specifically described have been built in the rail iy workshops by day labor; that the sixth waggon is asserted to have been built in the same way, but the evidence on this point is not conclusive. I* i?. bowever, proved that this waggou was not built by contract in Dunedin, and if built by contract in Oamaru is now four and a-half years old; that the evidence given to the Royal Commission by Mr Allison Smith t« the effect that defective waggons were built by contract hi Dunedin was given on the authority of the Commissioner of Railways for the Middle Island, and the Loco. Engineer, Dunedin ; and that Mr Smith now shows that evidence to be incorrect.