RAILWAY REPORT

Hokitika Guardian, 22 September 1931, Page 2

RAILWAY REPORT

; MARLBOROUGH’S PROTEST 1 . (By Tele{jraph~Per Press Association) BLENHE7.M, September 21. A series bf indignation meetings in various parts of Marlborbugh arising from the Railway Board's recommend ations in connection with the South Island Main.. Trunk line, culminated this afternoon in the largest mass meeting ever held in Blenheim when the spirited protests against the Board's finding and its figures were intend and it was decided to send a deputation to Wellington to meet the 'Members of both Houses. Mr Healy, M.P., after contrasting the Board’s estimates of revenue and expenditure in the project with those prepared by the ißa : lway experts, declared that the' Railway Board had laid itself open to the decision of all who knew even the A.B.C. of the South Island Main Trunk. He challenged the Board to substantiate by nearly on? million pounds its estimate for the completion oi the gap, and he declared that the extravagance of its figures indicated a “nigger in ina wood p ie,” and he asked the people of Marlborough to smoke that nigger out. (Cheers). , Illustrating what he termed the absurdity of the Board's figures, Mr Healy drew attention to its estimate of £127,753 to complete the construction to the Clarence River. He offered personally, to take ft contract to lay the rails to the Ci a ranee for only £SOOO. and then make a profit, and he would bet that the men on the job would be glad of the chapes at half that figure, Others speakers pointed out that £BOO,OOO had already been spent, or had been committed for, between Wharanui and Parnassus, and the interest thereon, would be nearly £50.000 per annum ; whereas, even on the Board’s own figures, another £43,000 per annum would give 'New Zealand the benefits of the railway, and thus save .the four millions of capital already expected. The meeting was . very lively and full of spirit. ' The speakers had not hesitated to express their opinion that the line had been . made the victim, first, of the party politicians, and secondly of a Board which had demonstrated its lack of vision and fts unfairness for the task with which it has been entrusted.'

Further meetings at Seddon and ,at Ward are projected, and Marlborough public men are openly advocating the ophiion that, if the line is stopped, the time is ripe for the establishment of a separate Parliament for the South Island.

Attention was pointedly ■'drawn to Auckland's two million pounds station, and its railway deviation, to Taranaki’s immensely costly side line, to the Main Trynk, and to Wellington Tawa Flat deviation and three instances, which could never add a copper to the Railway Department’s revenue, while the completion of a Main Trunk line was detained, At the same time the speakers sympathised particularly with the Gisborne line and the Westport project,