The Evening Herald. FRIDAY, SEPT. 29, 1871.

Wanganui Herald, Volume IV, Issue 1238, 29 September 1871, Page 2

The Evening Herald. FRIDAY, SEPT. 29, 1871.

Me Gisboene announced in the House on Wednesday evening the special policy of the Government.with respect to railways and public works. The sum of £100,000 is sM available for roads in this island, a fair proportion of which ought to be devoted to the important road from Wanganui to Taupo, which would traverse one of the most dangerous native districts in the country. The fact:that Topia has been subsidised does not give us-even a probable immunity from war, -if circumstances tended in this direction in other places. - Our telegram of last evening- announced that a " tramway was .to. be immediately con-

structed between if ana'wjitu and Wanganui. , .-.We; might1, suppose this to be ~Aan: . err|T^-.Lln another .part of the same it is/stated that one of the .main lines of railway,, authority for the :j '^immediate construction/ of which is to lie 1 "a'slfed^from the Assembly, is from Wellington ;r to-: 'New- Plymouth. Of course at.^-has -always been understood that this is not. to be a continuous line of railway, but that certain breaks will exist'in which ■tramways will be constructed. /The programme, as laid clown by--the Pro'vinciar Council,-and as indicated by the Government in its instructions to,the surveyors, was that a tramway should be .constructed from the ifahawatu Gorge, through Palmerston, to ilarton, where the railway would begin and run to "Wanganui. •Is it possible that the whole of theUangitikei district is,to be put off with a tramway, when a railway is to 'fe run from "Wellington to Masterton in the Wairarf.pa ? Has the grand scheme of the Government descended at the very outset to a miserable: log-rolling influence ? The1 Wairarapa with 3,000 of a population j obtained : two members at the last " readjustment" of therepresentation, while .the Wanganui district, with upwards of j 4,P,Qo, r ha.d:,torremain satisfied: with one ; and J.aJIW-: through a system of. "■ rog-'roiiing^^-which w0u1d.... be -contemptible, if it were not. so injurious to the interests of the Colony. If it is true

that the project of a railway line from Marfcon to Wanganui has been abandoned, it is because the Eimutaka Mountain and Fitzherbert the modern Sisyphus have prevailed over the common, sense expressed in Mr Yogel's Statement, when he said that only those lines would be constructed which showed a prospect of paying expense?. And if the telegraphic announcement is correct, population has been ignored, and a flourishing district, which bid fair to pay the expenses of a railway, if any district would, must put up with a tramway, while the Rimutaka is to be tunnelled for a railway. What is Mr Fox, the member for Rangitikei, doing? Has he sold his constituents and the interests of the Colony at large, to the imperious necessities of holding on to the premiership? We say again, the news can hardly be true ; but if it is, then dishonesty is so rampant in. the Government that there is no security left for the wise or proper administration, of Public Works—for the expenditure of the millions which are to be dissipated over the land by the hands of reckless spendthrifts. Is there to be nothing in this province to counteract- the Eimutaka scheme—-to save the Government from the chagrin and disgrace of the results of another South Sea Bubble % "