Otira and Auckland

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16149, 1 March 1918, Page 6

Otira and Auckland

Sincc it is more than possible that tho people of Canterbury aud Westland, and those public-spiritcd citizens who are preparing the campaign for the early completion of tho Otira tunnel, may not yet fully understand tho intensity of tiio opposition they will have to encounter from Auckland, wo print for their consideration to-day a leading article from the Auckland "Herald" of Tuesday last. Although tho tone of this article is unusually moderate for an Auckland paper interesting itself in a happening outside tho Auckland province, tho spirit of Auckland contra mundum is quite plainly to be felt in it. With the proposition that the Public Works Department should cease to dissipate its funds on a multiplicity of railways, and instead concentrate upon the most important, tho "Herald" is in completo agreement, but only, it is clear, because it thinks that this policy cannot be carried out unless Auckland is served first. Thero are many railways under construction, it says, more urgent and desirable than the Midland Railway and few* that are less so. Auckland "will " not dispute," however, "that business "j rudence now points to the comple- " tion" of tho Westland- Canterbury connexion. Yet this concession is accompanied by a condition. "Tho interested judgment of Christchurch" is not, if Auckland can help it, going to decido "whether the unbroken con- " nexion of Christchurch with. Grey- '• mouth should bo so pressed as to re- " tard tho progress of urgently-needed " settlement railways." For the right policy, in fact, tho Government must apply to the notoriously disinterested and unselfish judgmont of Auckland; and if the Government does not care to make such an application—as is likely to bo tho case, since tho Government docs not wish to appear to make invidious distinctions —Auckland will como to the Government's assistance; aDd point out that it so happens that the only really important and urgently-needed railways are in tho Auckland province.

It is something for the Auckland '* Horald" to admit that it will not bo positively wrong to complete the tunnel. It is not long since it declared that the opening of the through connexion would not increase production by ono truckload, so that we may take some satisfaction from the admission that after all the tunnci may as well bo completed gradually by tho expenditure of such remnants of tho annual construction vote as arc left when full justice has been done to the Kawakawa-Hokianga, Tauranga-To Maunga, and suchlike connexions. Dut that is as far as Auckland will go. Wo should probably not have had even this concession wei'e it not that after long years Canterbury has begun to show that it is done with meek submission m theso matters. Canterbury, of course, does not ask for concessions from Auckland or anybody else. When the Tunnel League's deputation goes to "Wellington, it will go to demand that tho Government shall forthwith recognise, not only tho long-flouted rights of this province and Westland, but the national interest bound up in the completion of the Midland Railway. Whether or not Canterbury's demand can be fully satisfied without a slackening of construction in other parts of the country is not Canterbury's concern atall. But if Auckland pressure inclines the Government to say—in effect, for ,wo do not suppose it will be said explicitly—that the Midland Rail way cannot bo .pushed on to the detriment of other lines, or, in other words, that non-urgent or unnecessary works must , receive consideration to the detriment of the only great work that at present matters much, then it will be the duty of Canterbury and Westland to show | the Government that they can fight as hard for justice and the national inj terest as other districts fight for purely local luxuries,