NAPIER-GISBORNE RAILWAY.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 August 1933, Page 4

NAPIER-GISBORNE RAILWAY.

Judging from statements made at Gisborne the prospect of having the NapierGisborne railway completed and operated by private enterprise is not good. The terms offered by the Government were stated to be quite unacceptable, and the railway authorities were accused of taking up a dog-in-the-manger attitude. Put broadly, the residents of the East Coast have backed faith in their districts against the experience of railway authorities, and they have asked upon what terms faith will be allowed to become definite action. There are four sections of the line. Three of them are more or less complete, one of them, the NapierPutorino, was operating, at a loss it is true, until the earthquake of 1932 wrecked the line. But the sections Napier to Waikokopu, 96 miles of the 131 between Napier and Gisborne, it is considered by the railway engineers, could be completed for the expenditure of £300,000. It is the section from Gisborne to Waikokopu, 35J miles long, that will cost nearly a million pounds to complete. To that sum, the Government insists, must be added sufficient capital to ensure maintenance and operating costs until the hoped for revenue from the railway line is received. The total amount considered necessary is £1,800,000. If that sum can be found by private enterprise it will receive the benefit of a capital expenditure of at least twice as great, and the community will receive some return for expenditure that is now entirely lost. This province has awaited better railway communication with the Main Trunk and Auckland districts too many years not to sympathise fully with the desire of the East Coast for railway facilities, particularly as the district has no deep-sea harbour such as Taranaki possesses. Nevertheless the authorities are only exercising ordinary prudence when they insist that so large a private undertaking shall be well founded financially before public works are handed over. The first steps in transactions of any magnitude often reveal differences in points of view which later negotiations help to bridge. Perhaps this will be the result of further efforts to resuscitate the East Coast railway.