The Evening Star THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 1873.

Evening Star, Issue 3152, 27 March 1873, Page 2

The Evening Star THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 1873.

The few paragraphs that appeared in the Star on Tuesday respecting the work in progress, in view of completing the railway system of Otago, prove that the General Government is quite alive to the necessity for completing those works already authorised by Parliament, and initiating others requisite to render them profitable. We arc glad to find that the survey for the Moeraki and Duncdip line is begun. We do not think there is any divided opinion in the City on the advisability of forming it ; for it is evident to the least instructed that, while other districts are making such efforts to improve their ports and harbors, and to connect the interior with them by tbe cheapest and best modes of communication, Otago, with its vast resources, will be left behind, if equal exertions are not made within the Province. Yet we do not think sufficient interest has been evinced in the matter, which will require all the support that can be given to it outside of Parliament, to enable tbe Government to curry it through in the face of the many demands made by other Provinces to have railways constructed in them. Never was a better illustration, than at the present time, of the mistake of nob falling in with Mr Vogel’s first proposition to constitute a Board of Works, in order that Parliament might be relieved from being made the arbitrators of what lines should and what should not be made. Every Province is preparing for the conflict. The immense success that lias attended the opening of the Port Chalmers line has opened the eyes of some of our sleepy-headed politicians to the fact that money invested in railways is not so much capital wasted as in a Maori war; but that it resembles on a very large scale the labor-saving appliances that are found to answer so well in manufacturing establishments, and that instead of involving additional taxation, railways are likely to relieve the country from it. It is in fact very surprising that those who have seen the ease with which heavy weights are

moved on tram roads from one part of a building or establishment to another, by the smallest possible expenditure of labor, should imagine that what answers so well on a small scale, will not answer oven more satisfactorily on a large one. In order to save labor in meat-curing establishments, rails are laid from one part of them to another, and by that means one man can do with ease what a dozen would otherwise be required to do with great effort. In going to Waikouaiti to report Sir David Monro’s address, wc passed on the road eight heavily loaded waggons, each drawn by eight or nine horses, toiling heavily along at the rate of about three miles an hour, which they would bo able to continue during six or seven hours—and then they must rest. On returning the following day, we met ten similar waggons going in the same direction. How far they were going of course we cannot tell, but assuming, as a point of divergence, each was going through Palmerston, two days would be necessary to reach that place, a distance of about thirty-seven miles. Each of those waggons, thus rolling heavily along, contained about five tons weight: so that for the conveyance of ninety tons in two days the labor of eighteen men and one hundred and forty-four horses was required to draw what one of the bogie engines on the Port Chalmers Railway would have drawn the same distance in two hours, at the cost of four of five hundredweight of coal, and requiring only the engine-driver, stoker, and break sman. A more practical comment on Sir David’s old-wifeisra could not have been given. Then his finespun theory that railways are such delicate articles to handle that, because continuity of rail is necessary to their being workable, it would bo better to have bush roads, would soon be dispelled if he had the luck to be driving one of those eight-horse waggons in wet weather, when even only one wheel cut through the road and bogged. We imagine that a displaced rail could be renewed with far more ease than the five tons in the waggon could be unloaded, and the waggon lifted out of the hole and reloaded. The one man with his eight horses would be in rather an awkward fix ' were none near to help him. A day would be lost, and days have been lost many a time, under such circumstances. The very mending of the road costs more than replacing the rail, and to this must be added the labor of unloading and loading, the damage to the goods and waggon, the wages of an unknown number of men, and the cost of keep of two or three teams of horses. And if this is not an uncommon occurrence on newly formed metalled roads, how much more liable is it to occur on bush roads. Now, even Sir David Monro is prepared to advocate the formation of the Moeraki line and if he, with his Arcadian notions, can see the necessity for it, surely the people of Dunedin should not be slow to realise it. Nor should they be at a loss what to do in the matter. There are means of making themselves heard in the Legislature. They can meet, consult, and petition, and if they do not use these privileges (the people of Southland, Canterbury, Nelson, Wellington, and other Provinces having done so), the representatives of constituencies in these places will have the right to say, “ Otago is indifferent to the matter, or the people would have spoken out.” This has always been a stock argument for refusing a boon, and knowing that, the opportunity of using it should be taken away.