Main Trunk Line.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18405, 11 June 1925, Page 8

Main Trunk Line.

There is very little more to bo said about the Progress League's pronouncement on tho completion of tho Main Trunk line. Nothing has happened sinco the'Beport was first circulated to indicate that it is either a more or a less important document than it seemed a month ago, and the organiser summarised our earlier comment last night with sufficient accuracy to save, us the trouble of repeating it. But there is one respect in which the discussion last night was both irrelevant and pointless. There has never been any doubt that if and when tho Main Trunk line is completed it will be by bridging the gap betwoen Wharanui and Parnassus. It is impossible to • imagine a Main Trunk route zig*zagging from one side of tho Island to'the other, and it was therefore a little absurd to draw up a supplementary report offering the Committee the "consolation" that "almost "all the arguments—as distinguished "from bare assertions—that had been "brought to bear against the Commit"tee's finding would bear with equal "or greater forco against a decision in favour of the Nelson"West Coast route." The question is not whether the natural route be* ! tween Auckland and the Bluff goes from Picton direct to Christchurch, but whether of the uncompleted lines in the South Island that most urgently jn, need of completion lies between

Wharanui and Parnassus, and whether if that is the most urgent job in the South Island it is the most urgent in the whole Dominion. It is beyond question that the Main Trunk line must be completed as soon as the facts warrant completion, and the Committee has properly classed the Wharanui-Pamassus gap as a break not only in the South Island system, but in the Main Trunk Line of the Dominion. What might be unwarrantable expenditure on a branch line might be quite justifiable on a gap in the national system, even though in and about the gap itself the prospects of development might not be promising. But the fact remains that the League has not yet proved that a line running all the way from Picton to Christchurch is immediately necessary or would be profitable, and it is a plain duty to say so.