PURCHASE OF THE MANAWATU RAILWAY.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 25 November 1901, Page 4

PURCHASE OF THE MANAWATU RAILWAY.

In an editorial article commenting upon the proposed purchase of the Manawatu Kailway, the Otago Daily Times says : —We hare always condemned the manner in which the Government has, by the unfair completion of the State railway through the Wairarapa, depreciated the WellingtonManawatu Kailway Company’s asset*, and we also have protested against the action of the Government in refusing to recognise the principle laid down in the Kailway Construction Act, 1881, as that upon which the value of the company’s assets should be determined in the event of the State purchasing the property. The Government has, however, chosen to ignore the rights which the company possessed under that Act; and the company, for its part, has apparently become reconciled to the prospect of obtaining less for its property than the Act that gave it the authority to build the line would have allowed it. The State pays, according to Sir Joseph Ward, £95,896 less for the railway than it would have had to pay under the Act of 1881. The colony has undoubtedly made a good bargain, although we cannot pretend to approve of the methods by which it has secured it.