LITTLE RIVER RAILWAY.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 509, 31 May 1881, Page 3

LITTLE RIVER RAILWAY.

A.meeting re the above took place in the school-room, on Monday evening the 23rd inst. The meeting was fairly attended, and Mr A. D. Allan was voted to the chair. The Chairman, having explained the object of tbe meeting, which was to urge upon the Government the necessity of ballasting the railway so that it could be used for traffic, read an extract from the Akaroa Mail, showing the advantages it would give to the settlers at Little River if the trains, were running, and called upon those present who were desirous of doing so to address the meeting.

Mr G. It. Joblin said he thought some more ought to be made towards getting forward the railway. The funds for the ballasting wero exhausted, on account of the facing costing so much. It was well known that the Little River District depended, as well as did the whole Peninsula, upon dairy produce, stock, crops of grass seed, and the works incidental to the cutting and sawing of timber. Tho recent depression in trade caused those productions to be diminished in price, and the settlers found themselves with diminished means to provide for augmented requirements.. As an outcome of this deplorable state of affairs, the mills in the district were about to \ui closed, or were so already. Hence many old settlers were leaving. He (Mr Joblin) thought that as the Peninsula railway " found oil for its own wheels" in the shape of an endowment, it was right that funds should be forthcoming to push the railway on at hast as far as Little Rive. This endowment, as they were aware, consisted, first, of the Lake Ellesmere ieserve, which would when drained and • sold furnish £100,000, after the drainage had been paid, which would cost about £14,000. It was of great area, being 17 miles in length and 10 miles in breadth. Secondly, there was the endowment of the moiety of £100.000 to be received from the sale of 50,000 acres of Peninsula land found chiefly in the Little River district and as there had been quite recently paid into the Treasury the sum ot A,O,OUU tor land purchased in the Little River district, the half of which belongs to the Peninsula Railway fund, and as the contractor has

offered to finish ihe ballasting ot the line as far as formed for £2,000, there ought surely to be no difficulty in finishing the line to the end of the present formation. He would suggest to the meeting th" appointment of a deputation to wait on the Premier, who would be in Leeston on Thursday nnd explain matters .to him. Several questions having l>o-*n asked and answered, it was proposed by Mr J. Watkins, seconded by Mr- W..Greenland and carried, " That this meeting again ca U tho attention of the Government to the unfinished state of the Railway alongside Lake Ellesmere, the rails having been laid from Greenpark to Birdhng's Flat but a considerable portion of the line stilly remains unballasted, thereby rendering it of no use to the settlers, who find themselves deprived of the advantages they expected to derive from tbe line, and in consequence many good settlers are about to le-iyo tie district, and others contemplate following the same course. It was moved by Mr J. Olphert and seconded by Mr W. Joblin, aud earned unanimously— ■• That a deputation consisting of Messrs Coop, Allan, Job.vi and Greenland (manager for White aud Go.) wait on the Hon. the Premier during his visit to Leeston, on Thursday, and represent to him the serious consequences resulting to the district from the delay in not completing the line." It was also resolved " That a copy ot the above resolutions be forwarded to the Premier by the first opportunity." A vote of thanks to the Chairman terminated the proceedings.

A reporter, in an article on the destitute poor, spoke of the great number of persons reduced to poverty by the "mysterious decrees of Providence." His astonishment may be imagined when he saw the printer had altered it to "mysterious decrease of provisions."