The Guardian (And Evening star,with which is in-Corporate the west coast Times.) THURSSDAY, AUGUST 9th. 1923 THE MIDLAND RAILWAY.

Hokitika Guardian, 9 August 1923, Page 2

The Guardian (And Evening star,with which is inCorporate the west coast Times.) THURSSDAY, AUGUST 9th. 1923 THE MIDLAND RAILWAY.

From the time when the linking-up of Westland and Canterbury by railway was first proposed, and especially during the last decade, the project, .says t-lib Christchurch ‘Press’’ has been the object of hostility unveiled and vocal in Auckland, iWellington and Otago that is, if some of the newspapers in those provinces have in this matter correctly represented the feeling of their various publics. Although the hostile critics generally professed to bo moved by anxiety about the unprofitableness of the line, thn real motive was a combination of provincial jealousy with provincial greed. Readers in Westland and Canterbury will accordingly he desirous of knowing what comments our distant friends have made upon the event which took place on Saturday. The Wellington “Post”, which has never been so rabid an enemy of the scheme as some of the other newspapers, is friendly and reasonable, and points out, what provincial jealousy too often makes people forget that “the rest of New Zealand will benefit, apart from the advantages which is hound to come to the whole from anything which increases the prosperity of a part.” The “Post” also recognises that the minerals and timber of Westland are only a part of the province’s resources, and it suggests that “in time tbo riches won from the surface of the soil may exceed those dug from the mines.” The “New Zealand Times” is even more cordial. The general commercial advantages of the railway are remarked upon by the “Times,” but it is confident also, that the railway will pay very' well. Indeed, it expects that as soon as the country has fully recovered its normal prosperity, the Midland Railway will ndd H per cent, to the net return from the railway system as a whole. This is perhaps too much to expect or to predict, but- there can be no doubt that the “Times” is on safe ground in saving that the line “is to-day within easily measurable distance of representing a large, self-supporting sound section of the Dominion railway system.” The “Otago Daily Times”, which is often rather more easily swayed by the loud and positive voice of Auckland than ic need lie, and which has added a querulous voice to the chorus of hostile critics of the railway in times past, still professes to be doubtful about the usefulness of the line. It is “not- so sanguine as to believe,” it says, that the railway “will prove a remunerative work,” the• only ground for its doubt being its fear that the railway cannot compete with se.vccirriagc. The two Auckland papers accept the completion of the line with very good grace. The “Herald” in its re-statement of the position which the enemies of the line took up, rather under-states the character of their ciritieism. Indeed, it is far from the fact that the Northern critics admitted that- Westland and Canterbury would have to “be sooner or later linked by rail.” and it is still further from the fact- that “when once the line was j begun the critics were at one with the promoters in urging that it be pushed speedily to completion.” Bui we need not now re-open old centre- i versics. Th? line is finished, and the j

people of Canterbury and Westland are content to allow time to demonstrate —and demonstrate soon—that tho linking up of tile two provinces is a stroke of economic policy of the greatest value to the Dominion as a whole.