WAIPAHI VERSUS TUAPEKA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 549, 25 October 1872, Page 2

WAIPAHI VERSUS TUAPEKA.

To prevent the expenditure of the public funds upon schemes which are neither likely to prove beneficial nor profitable is the peculiar province of the journalist. At the present time, when the expenditure of the loan under the “Public Works and Immigration Act” is causing a kiud of universal scramble for a share of the plunder, the honest and independent exercise of this function of journalism must provie of incalculable service to the general welfare. We propose in the following remarks to consider the relative merits of two rival schemes’ in a dispassionate and judi dal spirit, laying down as an initial canon that the benefit of the whole community is entitled to the foremost rank, and the special advantages to the districts with which we are more intimately connected a secondary, but hardly less important position. To monopolize the principal portion of the trade of the' central Gold-fields has always been the ambition of the inhabitants of Lawrence. Every opportunity has been ‘aken to urge Government expenditure on the roads, and all their powers of agitation have been exerted to the utmost for the same end. Of late, their efforts have been chiefly devoted to the construction of a line of railway between Tuapeka and Tokomairiro which would render their Township the nearest market for upcountry buyers, ar d it is to be specially observed that this monopoly of up-country trade is a motive openly avowed by their public speakers, who must be sadly deficient in reticence, or else remarkably confident of the persistent blindness of the residents of,the districts immediately affected. For be it observed, the line as proposed, is simply a branch of tt<e Southern Trank, connecting Tuapeka and Tokomairiro, and an appeal to any reasonable man whether there is much probability of the shrewd business men of Lawrence advocating an extension which would put their most profitable customers in direct communication with Dunedin, and have an almost ruinous effect upon their own trade. The query answers itself and appears to us sufficient groom!, were all other circumstances equal, to prevent the Tuapeka line being supported by the residents of the Dunstan and Teviot district But other circumstances are not equal; in the Tuapeka district, agricultural settlement has been carried far beyond the utmost limit, which a due regard for the mining interest would allow, amt on every hand the miners findthemselves hampered and impeded by the obstructive tendencies of the farming population. From Tuapeka to the Teviot the whole country traversed on either side of the river is rough, broken, and purely pastoral, or else purchased land, so that the line, even if extended, would open up I absolutely no - country for settlement. I Besides the cost oji construction would Iks! something enormous, for, not to mention I the physical features of a large portion of ! the route which may be briefly described as I alpine, its promoters must, of necessity, ! choose one orother of the horns ofa dilemma ; vis., eitherjincur the expense of two bridges across the Molyncux, or by avoiding all the centres of population, render the line practically useless. Altogether, we find no single reason for reiommending the line via Lawrence to our readers, and turn to the consideration of that via Waipahi, with the conviction that it cannot by any possibility be less worthy of support than its rival. Perhaps the most important functions of a railway line in a new country is that of affording facilities for settlement, and it is t'-e due performance of this requisite that alone can justify the expenditure of colonial funds in connecting any two or more special districts. The deficiency of the Tuapeka route in this respect we have already dwelt upon. Its rival is open to no objections on the same score, for between the Waipahi Junction and Tapauui there arc thousands of acres of the finest agricultural laud In the colony. Ncr is the country locked up, as for onlv about seven miles of its entire course does it run through purchased land. The scheme is, in fact, a grand and comprehensive one, tapping the undeveloped resources of the entire central portion of the Province, and opening up a more brilliant future than even the most sanguine could a few years ago have ventured to prophecy, It will place the Dunstan District in immediate connexion with. Tapanui, one of the most productive centres of the timber trade, and the large agricultural districts bordering on the Mataura. . .It will equalize prices, and enable the other mineral lesourccs of these districts to he profitably developed, byaffording the desideratum of cheap carriage. In shoit, it will not only prove the making of the up country districts, but also give an impetus to enterprise and trade, beneficial to the whole country, As to the cost of construction, we have the highest engineering authority in the Colony—that of Mr. Millar, F. S. A.—for stating it to be very small, no physical obstacles worthy' of mention to bo overcome. From the same gentleman’s able report it will be seen that even at the lowest estimate, the line is certain to prove self-paying, To conclude, there is absolutely no comparison between the merits of the two schemes, and we cannot too strongly urge the residents of the Dunstan district to cast their influence into the seals in favor of the Central Trunk Line, and thereby vindicate the position of their district as_the centre’of the goldmining industry in Otago, and as such, not at all likely to play second fiddle to even the great city of Lawrence, and district of Tuapeka.

The following is the copy of a telegram received from Port Darwin, and published in the “ Ovens and Murray Advertiser ” “ Deter men from starting for this place as much as you possibly can. The quartz louud is poor, and there is nothing whatever to justify any rash.”