The Daily Telegraph. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 1884.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3957, 26 March 1884, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 1884.

Our telegram from Nc-W: Plymouth, yesterday stated -that ; another practicable route, making tho third, had been discovered for a North Island majn. trunk railway. During the months" that.have,.been employed in searching for a practicable route, the several survey parties- havo endured great hardships, and- overcome immense difficulties. The country that they had ,to traverse was unknown; rugged, broken, ibusli covered. mountain ranges formed, to -all outward appearance, the almost impenetrable barrier that separated European settlement' on. that".'coast from the savage 'villages of -the interior. To discover a route for a railway was tho ambition of Taranaki. A glance at the map will show that, from the extromity of the Now Ply - 'mouth lino to the terminus of the Waikato railway, tho distance is shorter than from '■ any other point of railway. This was■'quite enough for Taranaki, and quite : enough for speculators to go upon. It did not matter to cither the one or the other how much a railway would cost to con- ' struct, or how useless and unremunorative it might bo when completed. It had been mentioned by the Government that a~ main trunk railway would bo a very nice thing to have, and Parliament had been induced to ;pass'an Act empowering its future construction. So Taranaki determined, as, tho .Yankees would say, to wade in. "What between crying and bullying little Benjamin succeeded in. enlisting the sympathy of tho -Auckland Chamber of Commerce, tho members of which', We presume, must havo been utterly ignorant of the country separating iWaitara from Waikato, and between them the Government was' induced to'; pitch any quantity of money away in searching for a practicable route. Three routes, it is now assorted, have been discovered, but what is meant by the term . " practicable", wo are left to guess from tho nature of tho country, and the time it lias taken in the discovery !of somo possible way of getting across the ranges. A practicable main trunk railway, however, can never be,made via Taranaki, for by "practicable" wo mean one that will bo moderate in cost of construction, working, and maintenance, one'that will open up good country for settlement, and one which will offer some prospect of being remunerative. 'Wo are glad to see that Auckland at length recognises the difficulty in tho way of tho perpetration of the Taranaki job, arid on this subject tho New Zealand Herald says :—" It is impossible to arrive at anything like concerted action ; in respect of this, question on the part of the North Island representatives. If must bo admitted that on the first hlnsh 'of the question the chances of unanimity soom small. From Wang? nii to Wellington, both inclusive, the pcoplo to ! a man will give their voice in favour of the inland route, and these would bo supported by Hawke's Bay settlors, and probably also by East Const constituencies of the Auckland district. On tho other hand, tho Western line has tho unanimous advocacy of the New Plymouth district, and, generally speaking,' of tho settlers of the Wclliugtan provincial'district situated to the north of ■Wanganui; while with tho groat majority of tho Auckland-people-it stands in undoubted favour. With such conflicting elements prevailing, what prospect is there for concerted action? The first stop towards obtaining this j,? by some- means to .allay tho commercial antagonist subsisting between Wellington and Auckland-. _ It is necessary to consider whether there is any solution of the question which might commend itself equally to Wellington and Auckland, and at the same time to conciliate tho ;Ncw Plymouth,,and West Coast settlors. Wo believe that all the parties interested aro prepared to make somo concessions. Looking from an Auckland standpoint, it is "clear that in land tho western 'lines offer great advantages, and it is certain that in the noap future railwa}'s along both routes must be constructed to secure ' the full development of the country: Let then our representatives even now declare boldly for both. ■. The million loan can of courso bo applied |o the construction, exclusively, of only one or other of them;.tho .one to which it may not be devoted can, nevertheless, bo undertaken by private enterprise. -We havo, therefore, _no hesitationiu saying that the policy, for Auckland members to adopt is (subject, ox course, to engineering reports) to lioW themselves in readiness to decide with the Wellington members in favour of tlio inland route, but only on those two imperative conditions: First, that the work be commenced at and carried on from both ends ends of the line simultaneously; and, secondly, that the right to construct tho western line under the provisions of the District Railways Act, bo assured to the colonists in the Auckland and New Plymouth districts, so long a,s they may: be in a position to arrange for undertaking it. Wo see no other way of escaping the difficulties and risks with which the question is beset, and there are many reasons which might be urged in its "behalf, as the heat solution attainable. It would secure the immediate commencement of the ''North Island trunk railway, on terms equally favourable to Wellington and to Auckland, and open up the interior of this island for settlement. It will secure also tho direct communication by rail of Auckland with New Plymouth and the West Coast generally