MIKONUI TRAFFIC BRIDGE.

Hokitika Guardian, 24 September 1918, Page 1

MIKONUI TRAFFIC BRIDGE.

OPENING NEXT SATURDAY. Arrangements are in hand for the official opening of the Mikonui bridge on Saturday next at 12.30 o’clock. Guests may travel from Hokitika by the 10 o’clock forenoon train. On arrival at the Ross railway station, .Messrs Stuart and Chapman will provide transport with their ballast train, and take the visitors from the railway terminus to the bridge site, a distance of about two miles. The Westland County CousciJ will provide a. snack lunch for visitors at the bridge site at noon, Mr. G. Adamson of Ross being the caterer. The opening ceremony will take place at half past twelve by the County Chairman, -Mr. B. Ward.- Several other gentlemen will speak also. Tin* visitors will return leaving the Ross railway station at 4 o’clock and reaching Hokitika at 5 o’clock. The County Chairman extends an invitation to County ratepayers and the public generally to attend the ceremony which is of interest to the district, marking the enterprise of a private linn and the local body in taking on the bridging of one of the large southern rivers which lias been such a bug-bear to southern traffic in the past. The bridge is of considerable length, and is a shapely structure intended to provide for the steam traffic of Messrs Stuart and Chapman Ltd. as well as for the general traffic so rapidly increasing in respect to the South Westland Traffic. .MINISTERIAL APOLOGY. In connection with the opening of the Mikonui bridge oil Saturday next, Mr. Ward, County Chairman, has received the following telegram from the Hon. Acting Prime Minister in reply to an invitation asking Sir James Allen or one of his lion, colleagues to visit the district and perform the official opening:— ‘•Thanks for your telegram for the invitation to the official opening of the .Mikonui tramway traffic bridge next Saturday. I am very sorry, however, that it is not possible for either myself or any of my colleagues to visit Westland on that occasion. “Please extend my congratulations to all present next Saturday on the completion of the work which it is anticipated will result in a marked development in South, "Westland. — (Signed), J. Allen, Acting Prime Minister.” Representatives of Messrs Stuart and Chapman Ltd from Auckland and Melbourne will be present at the official opening of the Mikonui bridge next Saturday, and will probably be among the speakers on that occasion.