WAITAPEKA DEVIATION.

Clutha Leader, Volume I, Issue 28, 21 January 1875, Page 5

WAITAPEKA DEVIATION.

{To the Editor of the Clutha Leader ) S r,— The folks of Warepa and South Clutha are exercised about the route of thtClutha- Mataura Railway, and why should they not ? They as all of us will have to make up deficiencies between revenue and interest, and why should they not get their railway ? We are told of a great principle in the "great scheme." It is that the Colony be opened from end to end by a grand ay stem of main railways; but a deeper principle, and one which is more or le?s detrimental to all State undertakings, is the political element. The railways, as by courtesy we call these things — these shod iy constructions ol the General Government — will when op^n produce deplorable disappointment, for they are not constructed or designed to carry traffic, hut to carry votes. That i'b one cause fur the General Government postponing the opening ol railways although all the while thev are paying intertst on their co*t out of borrowed money, tfiough Mr Vogel last session — as the 'Southern Mercury' says,' in answer to Master Humphrey — did get a small proportion votei out of revenue from in treated taxation, say L75,000 to pay the interest on some four millions, but which at 5 per cent would be L200,000 Mr Vogel has distinctly stated that the Colony will not construct branch railway?, but will oily make the main through lmts, though in Canterbury extensively; and to n less extent elsewhere, political reasons have led to a wide departure from a salutory rule — a rule prudently applicable t6 both main and branch line?, aud yet we are galled with the promise ef a branch" railway, a promise never destined to be kept. Branches are usually suckers rather than feeder?, are costly to wotk, and unsatisfactory to the public There must either be a deviation from the principles o' constructing only main fines direct by the nearest route from the North Cape to the Bluff, or the settlers of South Clutha must do without this railway, even though their district is extensive, valuable, and compara'ivtly populous For it is preposterous to suppose that the enormous parcel traffic between Invercargill and Uunedin can be permitted to be carried round a deviation of half or three quarters of a mile, as the steamers between the Bluff and Dunedin, while carrying goods at a fourth of the prices would also perhaps carry them in 1 Ps time if the trains were delayed by this half-mile deviation, at d that is of importance in 8n age of progress. Railway routes are sometimes difficult to account for. The writer knew ot a noble duke in the old country obtaining an advantageous deviation by the judicious investment of Lsooo. among the railway company authorities bat that was in England; euch things could not not be dreamt of in Ntw Zealand.— l am, &c, , ■ ; Dohbb.