55

D.—2

by facilitating intercourse. The great extension of the colony from north to south gives peculiar force to this consideration. These Islands are one-fifth longer from north to south than Great Britain, and though from east to west the land is narrow, the great mountain chain which unequally divides the South Island calls imperatively for efforts to reduce the barrier that cuts of£ the long line of the West Coast settlements. Easy, regular, and cheap means of transit within Ihe country equalize and steady wages and the labour market. In England the collapse of the mining industry of' Cornwall led to comparatively little suffering owing to the admirable railway system of the country. Durham and other large mining counties took up much of the disbanded labour of Cornwall. Dorsetshire has detached a part of its starving agricultural population into the more active farming counties. These movements would have been slower and less effectual had not the railway system diminished the cost of travelling by twothirds, and the length of the poor man's journeys by nine-tenths of the' time they occupied less than fifty years ago. The formation of a national spirit and of sound political opinion is forwarded by the more rapid exchange of ideas which daily mails and more frequent personal intercourse among the population will promote. The present narrowness of local feeling disappoints those who formerly attributed it to provincial institutions. It would seem almost incredible that a civilised community should in our days, and for a small local advantage, or in causeless jealousy of a neighbouring community, indulge the vehement desire, shown in the present struggle by a large section of the people of Marlborough, to secure for their small population and district not only the advantages of railway communication, but the monopoly of these advantages, although to gain this monopoly the interests of their far more numerous neighbours must be sacrificed or postponed for a generation. Nothing would tend so much to check such, local selfishness as the improved intercourse that would follow the completion of our system of internal communication. It is matter of frequent observation that very many of the most successful of our population, after realizing fortunes, return to Europe, not merely as visitors, but as to their home. Time only can cure this habit, which, if perpetuated, brings the well-known evils of absentee proprietorship ; but everything that tends to make life in the colony more attractive helps to diminish the mischief, by making the country a home, and evoking patriotic attachments. Among the means to this end is that of rendering the many varieties of climate, scenery, and social life which the colony possesses, accessible cheaply and commodiously. It is already becoming evident, as many persons had long anticipated, that tourists from abroad, and especially from Australia, will in the future contribute an appreciable amount to the income of New Zealand and to its population. The connection of this fact with a complete railway system is obvious. The northern and western districts of the South Iskind possess no meau share of the attractions of landscape beauty and natural scientific curiosity. The tourist will almost always prefer land to sea travelling, because it possesses the variety he seeks in a much greater degree. The tourist has a double value for a colony ; he furnishes a market on the spot for labour and produce, and he is a medium of spreading information respecting the country which it is using all means in its power to circulate. Equity requires that, as the South Island from the Waiau-uwha to the Bluff has been included in one large system, and as financial provision has been made for as complete a system throughout the North Island, the remaining communities of Nelson, Marlborough, and the West Coast should be admitted with the least possible delay to share the same benefits. The whole population join in guaranteeing the public debts incurred in establishing the system, and national fair play requires that wide districts and considerable populations should not be shut out for long indefinite periods from the advantages their credit and their contributions to taxation have helped to create. Lastly, from the publication of the proposals of 1870 to this clay, the colonial estimates for public works have constantly recognized the claims of the unserved districts to be brought into the colonial system. A complete trunk line was a part, and indeed the main feature, of the original scheme, and has never been withdrawn or repudiated by any of the Governments or Ministers who have since dealt with the subject, nor by any Parliament which has sat since 1870. Confiding in the sincerity of repeated Ministerial declarations, expressly or tacitly adopted by the Legislature, Nelson and its representatives have from first to last supported the policy of 1870 and the subsequent period. Into the question whether the colony can venture safely on the undertaking at any early date, it is not the place of the Committee to enter. They confine themselves to recalling to mind that the late Premier, Sir John Hall, and the present Colonial Treasurer, during the two last sessions of the Assembly, made the declaration, amid general approval, that the growing prosperity of the colony justified, among other enterprises, the extension of the South Island Trunk Line to Cook Strait, and the appointment of the Commission itself confirms and seals the long series of promises. Leaving this preliminary question, the Committee apply themselves to the primary subject of the Commission. The following are submitted as essential conditions of the trunk line extension : —■ 1. It should serve directly, or provide means by connections for serving, a maximum of population present and. prospective. 2. It should be direct within the ordinary limits accepted in practice. 3. It should be capable of construction at a cost not exceeding that admitted in other main lines in the colony. 4. Its gradients and curves should be as favourable as those generally admitted on the other main lines, and its technical features must not entail excessive cost or inconvenience in working. Each of these conditions wilFbe considered in turn with reference to the competing schemes, so far as information allows, and a comparison will be attempted under each head. The route advocated by the Committee under the name central line follows throughout the old, natural, and obvious track used for more than twenty-five years by travellers and stockmen between Christchurch and Nelson and Marlborough. The only deviation from this track is in the passage from the valley of the Clarence to that of the Waiau-uwha, on which the Hossack Saddle on the Lyndou and Percival Bun is substituted for the higher and much steeper Jollies Pass.