The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, JULY 28, 1903. ROADS AND RAILS.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 953, 28 July 1903, Page 2

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, JULY 28, 1903. ROADS AND RAILS.

While tic local Railway. League has gone from railways to tramways, the Napier Telegraph is agitating for a mono-rail between Napier and Wairoa. Referring to the Minister's response to the petition for a road, the Telegraph states : —“ We musr confess that it| is not easy) to extract much satisfaction out of the Minister’s response. Beyond the stereotyped reply that it would be too expensive to incur the cost of executing this needed work in one operation, the utmost promised is that the Minister will call for reports and that if •he can have his way there shall be something substantia) put on the Estimates “ eaes year.” The latter phrase sugges.s that the Minister regards with equanimity the prospect of the Napitr-Wairoa road remaining unsafe nr wheeled traffic for a number of years to come. For our part, we quite fail to see the appropriateness of the suggestion that the : work required to be done should ' not lit carried out at one stroke. To do so would cost money. But all tnc railway works which the lands north of Napier have been taxed to help pay for, and which are still taxed to pay, interest upon

capital expended upon such construe*fcion, have cost money also—millions o£ money. And Wairoa and the I whole district between it and Na- ' pier have not benefited by, that ex,to Wairoa, -or vice versa, is to ppmditure. For a Napier man to go undertake a trip which in the event oi had .weather may, keep him from home a fortnight. If the Government can still go on constructing railways—and especially such railways as the Otago Central—they sure!; - , ought to see to it that .the only means of land communication between Wairoa and Napier is made safe enough to take a waggon or a coach, over.” Continuing, the Napier journal states : “On the principle ol being thankful for even small mercies, we may, join with Sir William Russell and Mr Fraser in congratulating the Minister upon his grasp of the situation,and upon his keen and practical appreciation o' what is required. We trust that his appreciation will remain keen and practical, and his grasp secure, so that possibly; in half a dozen years from now it may he practicable for a mar to drive a coach in the winter on what the Minister recognises as ‘ such a necessary main road.’ ” After urging that the question of the road be kept pressed upon the attention of the Government, the use of the mono-rail is urged.

May we not,” asks the Napier journal, ” take it that the problem oi communication between Napier and Wairoa could be solved by a mono-rail line ? Assuming it to •be hopeless to ask the Government To consider such a suggestion, private enterprise might find in an undertaking of the kind a profitable means of investment. We do not pretend to any knowledge on the subject of the mono-rail system, but information within the reach of ordinary readers, if considered as reasonably reliable, justifies the assumption that such a line could he

constructed Between here and Wairoa at the rate of about £6OO per mile.” Most practical people will be inclined to accept that supposition of cost in a vwj sceptical way. The journal concludes : “We see no reason why, ob purely business grounds, and leaving on one side altogether the of the benefit to be derived from such a railway, a company formed to construct it should not paygood dividends. A project of the kind would at 'all events start under less discouraging conditions than Were originally faced by the promoters of the Manawatu Railway Company, and their success is well known to the whole colony.”