THAT "GHASTLY BURDEN"

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 126, 25 November 1930, Page 8

THAT "GHASTLY BURDEN"

(To the Editor.) : •- Siry—From your report of Mr. T. Shailer Western's address delivered to the. Employers', Federation annual' meeting a few days ago, it would appear to have .been a political fulmination-against the present Government's railway policy of completing the Main Trunk lines. That policy was originated .by"Sir Joseph Ward, who realised the national folly of keeping trunk lines unlinked, up, thereby, causing vast sums of: money to be locked up with ; no, chance of earning', revenue 'to "pay 'interest on the capital expended on them years. ago, and perpetrating a "ghastly" injustice on whole provinces by keeping them.isolated from the rest of the island railway system, and thtis strangling the development of these provinces. Nelson is one of the richest provinces in. New. Zealand in wealth.and ; variety of minerals, including coal, timber lands, the finest of marble, and iron ore, and para para ore. It is also the premier province for apple and fruitgrowing, and exported over 780,000 cases of the former last season; the dairying industry is an extensive one, -with ample scope for development, given, railway communication, it would become a second Taranaki, and with immense areas of Crown lands ready' for development and closer settlement. - ~ ■ The bogey of assumed losses on the main lines of railway communication now in course of construction can only at best be little more than mere guess work, ■put. up'-with the object of defeating the policy of completing the railways,.and utterly ignores the immense value in the social service they will be able to render to their respective provinces, and to the whole Dominion in the development of the country.-- .' ~ ''.■■:■'.''■'':.■'.'■■■: ■'.•.■'-■'"'.■' In ■■ the' case of the Midland' railway, statesmen and Prime Ministers as far back as 1870 have given,'and broken, the most solemn of promises to build and complete this railway, and declared their belief that it would pay.- The late Mr.. Massey. in 1924 publicly declared-"that the Midland railway when completed would pay its way as a coal. carrier alone/ and "must -be finished," and the late Sir Joseph Ward less than eighteen months ago' publicly • declared to a gathering of, thousands of people in.Nelson "that this railway gap must be filled, and the line completed,"- and that.'-'"the : people of Nelson could expect to see it.■ -finished within three or four years."" Now,, we are told by Mr. Weston' that "Parliament should forget;past promises, and opinions, and stop construction of this and other railways," on" the mere assumption; and pleas of improvable losses, and under: the guise of a temporary-depres-sion, •which in all probability will vanish .within less than' a year. Mr. Weston would surely be much'better engaged in preaching the doctrine of optimism, and that of faith in our railways, instead of holding up the development of this country and its varied industries. ';,'■ We -would ask Mr. Weston to imagine— if he can—what a "ghastly" condition the North Island would be in compared- with what it is to-day had its Main Trunk railways .up the East and West Coasts, and through the'midlands from Wellington to Auckland, been left with gaps of 40. and 80 miles-in their most essential parts for a period of 25 years; as in the case of the t\vo Main, Trunk lines, i.e., the 'Midland, arid that down the East Coast -of the South' Island.5 Yet it would seem that Mr. Weston and, other " North Islanders are prepared to move heaven and earth to prevent the South Island ; Main Trunk railways ever being linked up.—l am, etc., ■■■'■■ ',:; -SOUTH ISLANDER.. Nelson, 24th November.: : . :