THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1880. NO PASSENGERS.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2076, 19 October 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1880. NO PASSENGERS.

There is a singular want of knowledge displayed by the Wellington press on the subject of the latest extension of the Canterbury railways. Says a late leader in the " Post:"—" The first train from Amberley to Waipara ran on Saturday, and there were no passengers." And the " Post" apparently argues that there never will be, for it proceeds, speaking of the line : —" It goes nowhere; it leads nowhere. Waipara is a name and nothing more. Nobody lives there, and probably nobody will ever live there for some time to come." This will be decided news for the Waipara people. Anybody who has been in that district will remoiufcor with pleasure the fine farms dotting the downs, not to mention the considerable traffic that supplies the southern portion of the Nelson district, which entirely depends on Canterbury for its stores. But because the first train is not, according to custom, crowded with festive holders of free passes bent on a day out, therefore there never will be any considerable traffic on the line. And because there does not appear at the Waipara township a considerable number of enormous and perfectly empty public houses, such as are to be seen at Featherston, therefore the railway leads to nowhere, for nobody lives there. Holding this opinion, the " Post" asks—Why was the line made ? Of course, to afford labor for the Canterbury unemployed, is the answer. And then comes a second question :—Why were not these unemployed used in making the West Coast line from Wellington ? We can, at all events, take upon ourselves to answer this query. Simply because that line is not in the least wanted. It is a hobby of the Wellington people, who persist in imagining that it opens out large tracts of fertile land which are visible to no other eyes than their own. The affair lies in a nutshell. It is evidently necessary that Wellington should have communication with the rest of the North Island, and Wellington is surrounded partly by the sea and partly by a range of hills. There is already one line leading through the hills into the open oountry beyond, but the Empire City wants a second one. The only excuse they can find for the request is that a large quantity of excellent country will be made available by the process. This is just the point where the outside world differs from the Wellingtoniane. What the Railway Commission said on the subject was as follows: —" But apart from that fact (alluding to the West Coast line being in direct competition to the line already cut through the hills), we consider that the proposal is premature, on the ground that a large part of the country it would open np is still in the hands of Native owners; and inexpedient, on the ground that the value of the land which the line would serve has been greatly overrated, and that the undertaking would be an unprofitable one, which the colony would not be justified in entering upon." This is surely strong enough language, and its truthfulness has been endorsed by the public at large. To say that our friends up North are annoyed because their views are not swallowed by the unimportant section of the community outside of Wellington is putting it very mildly. They have been moving heaven to earth to got their pet scheme adopted. They have summoned public meetings on the subject, and have endeavoured to start a private company, to which the Government has offered to hand over any portion of the West Coast railway already constructed. But when they hear of any other line being opened in another part of the country, then the press of, and the dwellers in, the empire city are terrible in their wrath. The "Post," with a wonderful stretch of imagination, ends its article on the subject thus : —" But this is the way Wellington always fares, while on fortunate Canterbury, which already has all the railway required for the next ten years, new lines are showered with a liberal hand, the extent to which they are really wanted being convincingly proved by the fact that even the inaugural excursion train on one of them carried "no passengers." The extension of the

main lino to the Waipara is dubbed as being a showering of lines on a province already covered with a network of railways. To see unemployed working on any other than their own West Coast line is gall and wormwood to these gentlemen, and they seize on the fact that a first train has no passengers to indulge in a wail worthy of a better cause than the upholding of a line which may indeed be said to be quite useless, because another line already leads to the desired destination by another ronte.