AUCKLAND-NEW PLYMOUTH ROAD.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11548, 30 August 1900, Page 3

AUCKLAND-NEW PLYMOUTH ROAD.

TO THE EDIT3R. Sir, — Ministers, when urged to complete the metalling, &c, of the road already formed throughout and metalled for the first twenty-five miles connecting New Plymouth with Te Kuiti station on the Auckland railway, tell us that it would cost .030,000, and give that as the'r reason for not doing it. I now propose to show that it wotdd pay the Government well to expend this £30,000, and I even assert that it would be about the best investment of public money ever made by tho present or any other Ministry. The interest on £30,000 at 4 per cent would be only £1200 per annum and the Government, as owners of the Anckland-Te Kuiti railway, would at once gain by increased passenger traffic at the least £1200 a year and probably four or five tinies that amount. If aay persons ta.ke the trouble to fignre ifc out thoy -will find that it would only require fourteen first - class and . twenty-nvo second-class passengers weekly, viz., only half that number each way between Te Kuiti and Auckland to give a total of £1200 a year. There is not a shadow of a doubt but we should have a good Cobb's coach running three times a week each way if tharoad were' metalled and bridges completed right through from New Plymouth to Te Kuiti, and thirty-nine passengers a week as above would only average six and a half per coach. < This increased revenue to the railway alone would giye the Government a very handsome return on their outlay, not to mention the impetus to settlement all along the road which would follow the metalling of the road and the running of a coach. As things are the Government run daily trains with not sufficient passengers to pay expenses between Te Awamntu and Te Kuiti, and every week they continue to neglect the completion of the metal road they are losing money besides obstructing tho progress of settlement. It may be objected that I have not considered tho cost of keeping the road in repair, but tLat would not fall upon the Government, as they would on completing the metalling at once hand over the road to the County Councils who would loik after it as they do the twenty-five miles at thisl end already 'metalled. — I am, &c, A. C. Fookes. New Plymouth, August 29, 1900.