The Star. SATURDAY, MAY 6, 1905. THE MIDLAND RAILWAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8309, 6 May 1905, Page 4

The Star. SATURDAY, MAY 6, 1905. THE MIDLAND RAILWAY.

Canterbury and Westland have not been slow to take to heart the advice given to the big deputation that waited upon the Premier last session to urge upon hini the speedy prosecution of the Midland Railway. The Preniier candidly told the deputation that the people of the two provinces concerned shad been too slow in the past, and had not sufficiently pressed upon the Government of the day the importance df 'the railway being -peedily completed. .His last word of advice to them was to agitate in season and out of season. Jse cannot now complain if he has been taken literally at his word. The big conference of delegates held in Christchurch a few weeks ago, ventilated the position and the prospects of the railway very thoroughly, and it has been ...lowed- by an equally enthusiastic gathering upon the West Coast. Mr E. W. Roper, who was one of the delegates from Christchurch to .the Coastal conference, has just . returned, and he expressed himself to an interviewer as thoroughly satis-jjbd with the prospects of the railway. Mr Roper iB not content with expressing idle hopes and fancies, for he has gone into figures, and he has marshalled quite a formidable budget to prove Sfchat the immediate completion of the /line at a cost of a further million, *^ould almost at once be followed by a Efficient revenue to pay interest upon "the cost of construction, and also working expenses: These figures have been quoted before, and it is only necessary to point out now that there are 150,000 people in Canterbury and 30,000 in Westland who are waiting to be placed in readier communication with each other. Each community is in need of the products of the other, and the completed line would, of course, make the interchange of those products much easier. Mr Roper estimates the revenue from the carriage of timber and coal alone at £140,000 a year, and this would probably be very much increased in a few years' time. With respect to the passenger traffic, he points out that before the Lyttelton tunnel was- built, hardly as many people journeyed from Christchurch to Lyttelton in a week as now often travel by one train. The experience of the Midland Railway, he imagines, would be similar, and he is strengthened in this .conviction by the fact that upon the night he stopped atj the Bealey, sixty passengers were there, whilst there was a record a short time ago of 132 people stopping at the accommodation Bouse in one day. But it is "gilding refined gold " to urge the claims of the railway in Canterbury. Whatever may be the difference of opinion as to the advisableneas of ever hiving started the railway, there is. none whatever * about :the necessity of its early completion. iMuch of the capital already sunk in it is now lying idle, and to delay pushing on the work. means simply that the increasing cost in interest, mounting annually, will ultimately seriously handicap the railway. However, the Premiers assurance that the line is to be through in five years should give heart of grace to those whp have so long and enthusiastically pressed its claims. But it is advisable to keep that promise steadily before him, ancT not to overlook his own diplomatic advipe to " agitete, agitate, agitate 1"