The Hokitika Guardian WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 28, 1923 RIVALLING THE RAILWAY.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 February 1923, Page 2

The Hokitika Guardian WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 28, 1923 RIVALLING THE RAILWAY.

Wiiii.k folk are looking anxiously towards the convenience of through lailv.ay traffic cast and nest, private enterprise has provided in advance a motoring trip overland which in the season will tend to rival the railway in the matter of ready facilities for pas-

senger traffic. Doubtless it will lew news to many to learn tlint since Christmas something like three bundled motor cars have travelled over the bill or the divide which separates Canterbury from Westland. This number is surprising, but it is an increasing number, now that the feasibility of the trip has been demonstrated so clearly and the road is found to he in very passable condition for motor car traffic. Motor cais are falling in price and

the number of private owners is increasing and as the latest cars are of ample power, more people arc using them as their means of transport for holiday or business jaunts, as they permit more freedom, as also more leisure in peisonal movement. As the pioneers of the overlauding era by motor, Clements Motors Ltd., are doing .splendid work. They have demonstrated the practicability of the trip, and are providing a licet o! ears winch are a credit to any centre. The firm by its enterprise has done a great deal to advertise tile district and the popularity of a speedy motor trip is finding favor in all directions. The firm has been doing a eonsidenable amount, of tradeadvertising which not only lias brought business to the company, but simultaneously the attractions of the district have been extolled, and certainly Westland has grown in outside favor. A good deal of general printed matter has been circulated gratuitously by the firm, so that the fame of the district as an attractive resort for holiday makers and for motorists also is

spreading far and wide. Clements Motors Ltd., has heroine, therefore, cpiite an asset to the place, and the development of the business has produced a machine which will make for a greater revolution still in traffic east and west, (t is proposed to run a daily service both ways, .and as it will be possible to do the through journey from coast to coast in something under eight hours, the motor as a rival to the railways will have to he taken into account. There is also the fact to be borne in mind that the trip becoming a regular every day affair will lose the supposed terrors it had for timid travellers, uhile motorists generally, as is being demonstrated this season, will find their way across the mountains and push up and down the West Coast in unbroken sequence. \ traffic such as this could not lie maintained without justification, and the fact that the volume of trade justifies the expansion is another proof of tile passenger traffic overland, and is a further answer to those who have held that the traffic would not justify the railway. As a matter of fact the traffic will now he supporting not only the motors and the coaches but also the railway, so that it will bo seen what has been claimed in regard to the probable passenger traffic is being demonstrated well ahead of flic through railway journey coining to pass. The delay on the part of the authorities lias permitted a serious rival to enter the field and become well established in advance. But the competition will not be without benefit to the travelling public who will be more considered than were the traffic a monopoly of a single enterprise. Competition is the life of trade we are told, and it should he so demonstrated in regard to (he overland journey.