THE RAILWAY STATION.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160711, 26 July 1920, Page 8

THE RAILWAY STATION.

Merchants and shippers and the business community of Wanganui generally who have recently, through the Chamber of Commerce and other public sources, loudly voiced their grievances against the extra cost of handling cargoes discharged at Castlecliff in place of at the town wharf, will view with no small consternation the further penalties which it is now suggested should be imposed upon the longsuffering people of this community. It is bad enough in all conscience, in these days when the high cost of living is pressing so hard upon the general public, that householders should have to pay bigger prices'for their goods because they have to be landed at Castlecliff and carted or railed to town at additional expense, without talking about adding on another impost on goods brought by rail. Yet that is what must inevitably result if the latest phase of the railway station controversy is seriously considered. Not content with the suggestion of putting the public of Wanganui and the western suburbs to the everlasting annoyance and expense of having to travel anything up to eight miles to the passenger station which it has been urged should be erected at Wanganui East, it is now proposed to' cut the trains out altogether from Wanganui. That-is what Cr. Luxford in all seriousness suggests is the best thing to do in the interests of the people of Wanganui. That is what the Railway Department would be delighted to do —■ study its own interests first, the public to shift for itself. And that is what will inevitably happen —■ no trains at all into Wanganui, unless the people bestir themselves. The late Mr Seddon on one occasion told a deputation, which complained about the lack of roads into the interior, that Wanganui got just what it deserved, and if Wanganui permits itself to be penalised for all time by the Railway Department • well, it will deserve it.