The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING, GISBORNE, DEC. 19, 1905. RAILWAY ROUTES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1630, 19 December 1905, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING, GISBORNE, DEC. 19, 1905. RAILWAY ROUTES.

Tub good people of the Bay of Plenty are already kindly settling our railway route for us. The Tauranga journal indulges in an elimination scheme. It is not satisfied with merely advocating a railway, but would peremptorily settle the route. It states : “ Opotik 1 wants to get to Gisborne and to Botorua; Te Puke wants to get to Mamaku, en route for Waikato and Auckland; and Tauranga, as by nature the centre of the Bay of Plenty, seeks railway connection with Te Puke, Botorua, and Waihi. To arrive at a settlement by the process of elimination seems to be about the simplest way of ascertaining what can be done to meet as many of the re' quirements as possible, and, to begin with, we strike out the once promulgated desert route from Gisborne to Botorua. The next to go must be the suggested line (as a continuance of the Gisborne - Karaka - Opotiki linej from Opotiki, behind Whakatane, and via Taneatua, to- Botorua, the reason for its elimination being that it serves little or no purpose after leaving Taneatua, excluding the valuable coast country, and refusing freights to a port. Further than this we need not argue by elimination, except to say that no scheme will be acceptable to Tauranga which does not contemplate, at least as an immediate certainty of consecutive construction, a line between Tauranga and J’e Puke, with its further eastern districts. To begin constructively then, there is no view ahead of the Waihi line than extension io Katikati and Tauranga ; equally also have we eliminated any other aim for the Gisborne-Botorua railway than to run from Gisborne to Opotiki, thence serving Whakatane, Taneatua, Matata, Pongakawa, and Paengaroa as best as it may, to Te Puke, thence or thereabouts by the most serviceable route to Botorua. Obviously, then, the only further requirements to please as many as it can humanly bo ever hoped to please, is that Tauranga and Te Puke should be connected, and tnen the whole system is joined up-Gisborne, Waihi, and Botorua, with tho whole fertile Bay of Plenty.’’ We have no wish to quarrel over this matter of routes, but would point out that it is quite premature yet to worry on that subject. When the Motu is within measurable distance it will be quite time enough to rouse up matters as to the route