LYTTLETON AND CHRISTCHURCH RAILWAY.

Wellington Independent, 6 January 1860, Page 1

LYTTLETON AND CHRISTCHURCH RAILWAY.

Our enterprising neighbours, at Canterbury^ about it would seem, to give effect to a measure, which in this Province, at least, would have been thought to savor rather too much of Yankee go-a-head-ism. The estimated cost of the railway is £235,000, but Mr, Hall says respecting this :- —

, The contract was placed at £235,000, but this it must be remembered was exclusive of rolliug stock, which would cost £35,000. Then there would be another £ 10,000 or £12,000 for the purchase of the land, arid not only the purebase but the severance of the lana* would have .to be paid for. There was also the salary of the superintending engineers aud overseers of the work while in progress.' All this would bring the total up t0. £300,000. To meet this a loan of £70,000 is

proposed to be raised, and a sum not exceeding £40,000, to be appropriated out of the Revenue until the work be completed. But Mr. Hall is not very sanguine as to the Province having the means of doing this. In the course of the same speech we have quoted from above ho says : —

Tlie laud revenue should l>,; estimated nt £30,000 und pas tura ire rents at £15,000. Ht. would grant that the ordinary revenue would cover the ordinary expenditure. If much work Was to be done they must have i;u migrants to do it, and immigrants could only be brought iv by paying for them. These charges together amounted to about £31,750. Nothing yet had been said ahout the interest on the loan. As to ali the Works being done, so they were, in al. occupied lands, but many people hdU hough and and not yet taken possession. If it were* intended to -top road-making the lailway would do more harm than good. In such a case what would the outlying districts — Timaru, Akaroa, bee., say ? Would not Timaru, if she saw her land revenue speut so far away from home, at once petition for a separation. Another point also, We think, deserves consideration, and this is whether the railway, if completed to Christchurch, will not then require a longer railway extending North and South, or divergent lines trending in those directions, to make it really available for the conveyance of the produce of the Province to its shipping port. Even its great advocate Mr. 01---livier says, " it will not be merely the formation of this trunk line, but it will be the beginning of a system of railways to all the settled districts" — a most desirable consumation, without doubt, but open to grave questions as to whether the means yet exist for its accomplishment. Yet we most earnestly wish success to the enterprise, and only hope that the example of Canterbury may stimulate us and the other Provinces of New Zealand, to make strenuous efforts for similarly useful purposes. Irrso saying, we would not for a moment be understood as assenting to the monstrous assertions of certain members of the oppostion in in our own Council, as to the roads already formed here. It is readily granted that railroads would be superior, but as already a public conveyance traverses the distance between Wellington and Greytown, in less than a day, we maintain that already roads have been constructed that fully answer all present purposes, and as to the alleged cost of repairs, that like . most of the statements emanating , from the same quarter, is simply ridicul- j ous.

Before dismissing this subject, we can but quote for our readers amusement some extracts from the "Lyttelton and Christchurch Railway Bill," which if we had not ourselves extracted from the columns of the " Lyttelton Times " we should have imagined to be the production of some Southern T Punch. In the sth clause of the Bill, provision is made for ascertaining the amount of compensation to be given for lands, in terms of an Act of the Imperial Parliament, but in order to render the latter applicable, it is. necessary to change some of its terms. This is done by the Canterbury Act declaring — not that certain Words shall be substituted for others, but that those words " shall mean " what tlie Provincial Council chooses, thus quietly setting aside all established lexicons, and substituting new meanings till now unheard of. In the first we quote, the wish may irobably be the father to the thought," the words: — *

" Comrriisioners of her Majesty's Treasury" — shall, mean — " The Governor of New Zealand." the second has in sound at least, a certain grim significance : — . "The promoters of the undertaking" — shall mean—" The Supeiintendeht of the Province of Canterbury for the time being-." . But the two following for magniloquence flog all creation *." — "The United Kingdom ;"— "The Kin-rdom;" — " The County" — shall mean — " The Province of Canterbury." " Board of Trade"— shall mean— "The Resident Magistrate at Christchurch." Surely after this the " Empire City,' ' whoever was the father of that phrasa, will be acknowledged to be as nothing in the face of an Ordinance which declares that "The United Kingdom" shall mean the Province of Canterbury, an expression that would enable us to dismiss the subject with a smile, even if we felt less favourable to the project than we really do. •