Cromwell Argus, AND NORTHERN GOLD-FIELDS GAZETTE. Cromwell: Tuesday, July 8, 1873.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 191, 8 July 1873, Page 4

Cromwell Argus, AND NORTHERN GOLD-FIELDS GAZETTE. Cromwell: Tuesday, July 8, 1873 .

According to a statement made by hisHonor the Superintendent in his , Opening Address to the Council, definite proposals are shortly to be submitted to the consideration of that body, having for their object the immediate construction of light lines of railway in various parts of the Province. Now, this is a step on the part of his Honor and the Government in the right direction ; and if the proposals are agreed to, thanks will be due to them for the initiation of a scheme so well calcu lated to enhance the progress of the Province. It is greatly to be hoped that nothing will come in the way of the early consideration .by the Council of the proposals referred to. The parts of the Province in which these lines shall be con structed is a matter which will be decided by the Council, if they see their way clear to authorise the construction ; and there is no doubt a line to Cromwell will be one of the first to be undertaken, in that case. Day by day, we see the growing necessity for such a line, and at this time of year especially does its necessity seem strongest. The mail service to this place falls every winter into a disgracefully disorganised condition. Out of the three mails which should arrive in Cromwell during the week, only one reaches upon the proper fixed day. Of the remaining two, one comes to us two, the other three days behind time. And the roads down country are in such a completely impassable state that help for this there is none. 80 bad is the state of the Northern road at present, that that coach which should arrive at Clyde on a certain night makes only half the distance,—-to Naseby namely. Passenger traffic is almost at a standstill. Merely those who are compelled to travel can find pluck enough to enter upon a journey so full of difficulties and uncertainties, and even of positive danger. But these are not the most serious drawbacks we have to bear in consequence of the wet weather and bad roads, and therefore slowness and irregularity of transit. The carriage on goods has reached, and does reach every winter, so enormous a rate that gold-fields storekeepers are obliged to be content with stinted supplies ; and for six months of every year they order and receive only such goods as they cannot possibly want, and of these the smallest quantities. How this retards the prosperity of the gold-fields need but be shortly pointed out. The cost of living is

high, and therefore the wages. Claimholders are thus placed at a disadvantage. To enable the holder to pay twelve shillings a day to a labouring man all the year through, a claim requires to turn out no small quantity of gold. The average earnings of alluvial miners throughout the Bannockburn district, for instance, are perhaps not over thirty shillings a week,— certainly not two pounds. And it is easily seen, therefore, that only in highly exceptional cases can alluvial clairaholders afford to employ labour. In quartz mining, also, the same is the case. Only within the last week or so we have had a forcible example of the truth of this in the matter of the “strike” on the Garrick Range. Directors of companies find that either the wages must be lowered, or the mines cannot pay. But the men find that either they must ha,ye high wages or they cannot live. And so a dead-lock is the result; and the prosperity and progress of the district suffer in thq , meantime. That a railway would effect much in the way of improvement in these respects is evident enough. The ■gain and advantages of having a certain, speedy, and cheap mode of carriage all the year round would make themselves widely felt! in a wonderfully short space of time. One of the least of these advantages—and that not a small one—would be that cheap living for the miner would enable him to work at a profit much of the ground that now lies untouched because it will do no more than “pay tucker.” In all respects, a railway would be a vast help to the development of gold-fields so difficult of access from the seaboard as these are, —so vast a help that the indirect gain to the Province would far outbalance anythi—* in the shape of direct loss that migh n occur. Into the profit or loss question as regards traffic we cannot enter, having no data to guide us. It is to be expected that for some time, if loss did not accrue, at least no great profit would result. But railways in new countries are made to encourage settlement, and create a payable traffic. And it has been affirmed over and over again that these two ends would be achieved by a line of railway up the valley of the Molyneux. Country for settlement there is in abundance; and trades between one place and another—in produce, and timber, and other ’things—would spring up of which 1 the amount can now be merely guessed at. No doubt can exist that the continuation of the line from Tuapeka is best, suited. for this portion of the Province; best suited-because the route is the easiest, and because the line as far as Tuapeka ,is already under way, whereby fiftyseven miles of the whole distance from Dunedin is provided for. The cost of the line from Tokoraairiro to Tuapeka, contracts for which have been accepted, is estimated at £SOOO or £OOOO a mile. And anyone who knows the respective routes—that between Tokomairiroand Tuapeka, and that-between Tuapeka and Cromwell—will be inclined to believe that the cost of construction on the latter route will be but little more than half, certainly not moro than three-fourths, of the cost on the former. Under all the circumstances, therefore, we hope that the proposals spoken of by his Honor will be speedily agreed to. The 1 Province requires these lines urgently, and no part of the Province more than our own. Care of course will have to be taken by j the Council that they consent to no ruinous mode of raising the money necessary for the construction of these railways. Selling land at a nominal price to pay for a railway which will shortly treble the value of that land is but a suicidal method of endeavouring to progress. Let our Councillors bo chary of going to work after any sueh fashion. Borrowing money upon the security of the land is the one and only true plan by which the Province can be expected to reap the full benefit of the construction, of railways, and the only plan by which it can be calculated that the prosperity engendered in the course of their construction will not be turned to ruin when the money is spent.