The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1885 Sleeper Contracts

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 108, 26 February 1885, Page 2

The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1885 Sleeper Contracts

The Napier Daily Telegraph of the 23rd instant, in its local columns, complains that " In some of the West Coast papers we notice a Government advertisement calling for tenders for the supply of 10,000 totara sleepers for the North Island main trunk railway. Why should not that advertisement have been inserted in the Hawke's j Bay papers ? In the Seventy-mile Bush there is the finest totara in New Zealand, which could be cheaply rafted to Palnierston down the Manawatu river, but the Government in its superlative wisdom advertises its wants in districts where they cannot be supplied." We agree with our contemporary in thinking that the advertisement should have been inserted in the Hawke's Bay papers, but we are certain no man in his senses would attempt to raft timber through the Manawatu Gorge to Palmerston. Tlio danger as well as expense would be enormous. We are aware that a similar experiment was made here by a gang of experienced Canadian woodmen, and the f ailure was most ruinous. The rafts wore broken up on the snags or falls, and the timber washed out to sea. When our contemporary refers to advertising " in districts where they cannot be supplied," we assume our part of the country is not referred to, for we have enough of forest yet left to successfully compete for totara contracts against any other part of the Colony.