WHAT WE INHERITED.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1690, 5 March 1913, Page 8

WHAT WE INHERITED.

FROM PREVIOUS GOVERNMENTS. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) Auckland, March 4. A statement by the Minister for Railways at Gisborne that the construction of ' the East Coast railway will bo carried on as far as means will allow and a proposal made in to-day's "Herald" that tho Otira tunnel should be added to the list of works which the Government has decided to defer owing to lack of funds for their prosecution, wero brought under the notice of tho Minister for Customs to-dav. Mr. Fisher said that he could not offer any opinion regarding the policy of the Government in regard to the East Coast railway. In answer to a question he gave a brief explanation of its decision to complete to Otira tunnel. He stated that the railwny had been carried nearly as far the Otira tunnel. He stated that the struction of the lines had been costly, and their upkeep and maintenance (whether trains were run upon them or not) would 1m expensive. This railway ran into an unpopulated district, and it could not bo profitably employed unless a connection was made. The Government had decided that the only course open to it was to push on the construction of thp tunnel as rapidly as possible with the funds it possessed/so that some return miirht be obtained from the expenditure that had already been made.

"It is part of o wretched policy wo have inherited," the Minister added, "of startins more railways than could be carried 011 with available money."