OUR RAILWAY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1857, 11 September 1906, Page 3

OUR RAILWAY.

In regard to the Eaat Coast railway, the N.2. Herald states There ia not a railway ptopcail in the oolony for which more can be advanced and against whioh bo few arguments oau be manufactured, The speoial articles by whioh the Herald haa reoently drawn public attention to the

h : gh quality and enormous extent of the

country ifi would open up must have convinced every reader of the urgency of this construction. Millions of fertile acres would thereby he brought into touoh with the centres of trade, with Iho result that an extraordinary impetus must bo given to the population and prosperity of the colony. If one considers the railway painfully and expensively struggling forward through the midland mountain rouges; of the exoeediDgly small area of good land and that worthless without costly irrigation—to be served by the Otago Central, i: is astoundiDg that tho mcompf.rably superior and more extensive country to be traversed by an East Coast lino should be neglected, We ere entirely opposed to tho arbitrary thrustiog under short te m leases of the remaining Crown and native lands of tho North; ncr aro wo oonsoled by the labelling of those as "Endowments” anymore then those settlers will be oonsoled who are asked to go as tenants and carve farms out of the wilderness, But whether these lands are to be held in leasehold or freehold we assume that the expectation of the Government is to get them ocoupied as soon as possible; the less favorable the tenure conditions ate the more essential it is that railways should be pushed through them,