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Gisborne Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1809, 16 July 1906, Page 2

RAILWAY ROUTE.

A semes of articles describing the likely route of the East Coast railway is being given by the Now Zealand Herald. “If our leading politicians would only take the troublo to seo these East Coast districts, and could at the same time be depended on to act only for the true benefit of the | nation, there would be no hesitation in voting grants for this East. Coast railway during the coming Parliamentary session, and if Auckland merchants and Auckland M.’sH.K. would show enough enterprise to travel overland even as far as Matata they would not allow their fellow colonists to rest complacent under the old idea that only the South Island had rich agricultural and pastoral lands.” Thus writes the special representative, who, however, has yet only reached the fringe of the best of the country nearer Gisborne. Of what he has seen he writes in glowing terms. “They would see as I have seen,” he states, “ the promise of close settlement on the shores of the great Tauranga Harbor, the vast extent of fertile country about and beyond Te Puke, and this marvellous stretch of alluvial soil that opens before one at Matata. They could go beyond Matata through Whakataue, Opouriao and Waimana districts, which have not their counterpart in the South Island for fertility, and if after their journey they tamely submitted to see grants of money squandered on Midland Railways and Otago Centrals, then they would be guilty of neglecting thoir duty to their province, and unpatriotieally to thoir country.” All of which shows hat the Auckland people aro at last awaking to a sense of their district, and that adjacent. They have still a good deal to learn apparently, but once the people fully ! realise the real value of this part of energising of the movement for closer connection. In the meantime the line creeps steadily along from the Gisborne end, and it will be necessary for us to give the Minister another reminder shortly on behalf of the section of the line beyond Te Karaka. The Motu is still a long way off.