RAILWAYS IN VICTORIA.

Evening Star, Issue 2851, 9 April 1872, Page 2

RAILWAYS IN VICTORIA.

The following extracts from the speech of Mr C. G. Duffy, at Castlemaiue bear equally upon the prospects of New Zealand as Victoria, and are worth perusal and reflection “We aim to make Melbourne the entrepot of trade and the metropolis of the Southern Pacific by a series of efficient mail services, and to share her advantages with the whole country by an extensive system of railways. The farmer’s wheat will go to India, and the viguerou's wiuc to the islands cf the Pacific with profit, when the farmers and vignerons are os on the line of a railway. We propose a series of mail services which, if they obtain the assent of Parliament, will enable us, without inordinate outlay, to make Melbourne the terminus of the communication with Europe, India, and America. We have entered into a contract with New Zealand, subject to the approval of Parliament for a mail service running from Melbourne to San Francisco by way of New Zealand. It will give us habitual access to the United States, and habitual access to the Pacific Islands. We want access access to the United States, because they can teach the industrial and social arts by which a new nation rises to prosperity. .... And we want direct and regular communication with the islands of the Pacific, that we may share the trade of that new world As far as railways exist among us, they Lave promoted comfort, economy, and {civilisation; and though they were enormously expensive, no oue can regret that they Lave been made. Had they been made at the cost we now propose to incur, they would have paid splendidly, and have been a steady source of national income. And what is mere, costly as the construction was, they would have paid their way if the Legislative Council had simply kept then- hands off them. Put by an unfortunate blunder called an amendment, imported into the Construction Bill in that chamber, doable hues were ordered when single lines would have sufficed, and we are paying in interest upon money wasteel in this experiment, aud iii maintenance of a superfluous way, I 400 or LuOO a day. This is a fact which it is necessary to recall, for the whole future of railway estemion id

involved in the question, Can we make railways cheaply ? If we can, we shall open up the country rapidly; if we cannot, the policy of adding to lines that will not pay is very hazardous. The desire of the Government is to make them as cheaply as is consistent with safety ; cheap railways and plenty of them in oiir policy. Gur neighbours in New Zealand, who, it must be confessed, are making vigorous and practical efforts for a foremost place, have boldly projected 1,500 miies of railway on a narrow guage, to be made at the rate of 150 miles a year ; and I don’t think Victoria will be alarmed at a responsibility which New Zealand(can afford to undertake.