TAIERI AND CLYDE RAILWAY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 816, 7 December 1877, Page 3

TAIERI AND CLYDE RAILWAY.

o—[Daily Times Telegram.] Wellington, Dec. 1

The following is a precis of the report (not yet printed) of the Select Committee of the Legislative Council on Railways on the Taieri and Clyde Railway Bill: —“ The line proposed is from Outram to Clyde, and is 100 miles in length. Its estimated cost L 540,000, and the proposed reserve 400,000 acres. The Committee recommend the additional reservation of 100,000 acres for this railway. As regards Otago the whole interior basin of the Taieri, Manuherikia, and Upper Clutha is practically looked up from profitable settlement by not being made accessible to the seaports, and is at present unsaleable at anything like LI per aero, but that the proposed railway would render the land certainly saleable at a price above that limit, while the making of the reserves proposed would, if taken together with the other reserves for theTnoh Clntha (proposals already alluded to) practically exhaust all the remaining agricultural land in the Otago portion of the Provincial District. The Committee advise that the Bill be passed with certain alterations, and think this railway is a very desirable public work, which will promote settlement in the country and develop its resources. The Committee strongly- approve of constructing this lino by the reservation of Crown lands, if only the reserves are sufficient in extent to ensure that no charge forjthe construction of the line shall ultimately fall on the ordinary revenue of the Colony.