WAIKATO-WEST COAST RAILWAY

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15356, 3 October 1923, Page 6

WAIKATO-WEST COAST RAILWAY

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —-Mr Ernest S. Rybum has a facile pen, but fills It with abuse for the other side, instead of logic, and thereby reveals the weakness of his argument. Mr Ryburn said, “The Raglan district is only an inconsiderable part of the "Waikato-West Coast Railway District”; so for that matter is Ngahlnepourl, and it is therefore evident that this is the mainspring of Mr Ryburn’s argument, because a writer always starts out with his leadtng thought, which in this case is a parochial idea, and Mr Ryburn is consequently speaking for his own little potato patch and not for the great stretch of inaccessible land through tho Raglan valley to Kawhia, wherein there are hundreds of struggling settlers who are denied the privileges and advantages due to their wives and families and who, I affirm, could not sell out, even in the boom days and at pre-war prices. This was not because the land was poor, but because of its remoteness from the main highways of the Waikato. A farmer must not only handle marketable produce, but also marketable land. The first consideration in buying land anywhere is whether it can be re-sold readily and without loss, because there must come a time in every man’s life when h& must sell, and I say from actual personal experience that there are farms' in this railway area which could not be sold even at auction; and I say,

further, that easier and speedier access is required through Raglan and Kawhia, but whether it is to be by road or rail is for the settlers themselves to decide. I might say that I have financial interests near Ngahinepouri, so that if it suits Mr Ryburn not to have a railway it will also suit me, but I am battling for the wider area and those who are not so favourably advantaged by an easy, straight road like that from Frankton to Ngahinepouri. It was for this reason that I went to Wellington as a member of the light railway delegation to Mr Massey, at my own expense and without any knowledge that I was to be reimbursed in any way, and I then had no financial interests in the district nor a business of my own in Hamilton, so that Mr Ryburn’s reference to “sundry land boosters” is cheap and impertinent. I am chairman of the Agricultural Educational Committee, which was chiefly responsible for the establishment of the Ruakura Boys’ Farm School, and I am also chairman of the Waikato Immigration Committee to find labour for the farmers, so that you see I am boosting the farmer and not his land, which he is quite able to boost himself, and I might add the land agents like cheap farms, which sell more readily and render his task easier, so that’s that! Mr Ryburn’s reference to Hamilton is an old gag. There are business men in Hamilton big enough and generous enough to help the farmer who makes the town, and who, with me, stand for the waybacks.—l am, etc., J. GILBERT.