CENTRAL RAILWAY ROUTE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XL, Issue 9253, 1 December 1891, Page 2

CENTRAL RAILWAY ROUTE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—The following esttact from Mr Oliphant's letter in the Auckland Weekly News will show your readers how little faiih can be placed in Mr Mitcholson's opinion re the country inland from this coast. He writes : " The Central route, which had lots of ballast everywhere, was to cost £6093 per mile; an estimate sinco shown to bo grossly inadequate, so much so that one million pounds sterling has now to bo added to the cost of the Central route. The ovi ence of Mr Edwin Mitchelson is Komewbat appalling. He says: 'Tho first 30 miles from Stratford is a niugnifiiwnt country, but land beyond for 47 miles ip unfit for sottlemcLt.' But being questioned more fully he admitted that ho had not travelled over this particular 47 m.les. 1 his question was then put to him: 'Tho 47 miles of country that you did not pasa through ie what you believe to be very

poor? 1 His answer was: 'I saw it pretty well ; I went to the top ot the trig stations at each ond, and looked at it with a pair , of glasses.' " Again in his Public Works Statement, August, 1889, he states that, "The Waitara route would bo exceedingly costly ; about 15 miles in the Mirni and Waitara watersheds are by far the heaviest yet surveyod in the North Isiand, and after leav'mi the coast no settlement of country is opened up." Compare this coming from a man who never saw any part of tho country, with what Mr J. Skinner says, viz.: — " A very large amount of the Tangarakau country in good grazing land, and part of it no doubt farming land ;" " Altogether from the Waitara to Tangarakuu there is over 20,000 acres of land suitable for settlement, and beyond this there is a largo area of graziug land that will come in for use when the country has been thoroughly opened vp — land equal to that now being settled east of Stratford ." — I am, &c, Observer.