CORRESPONDENCE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 490, 10 August 1912, Page 5

CORRESPONDENCE.

Letters for publication, and articles for insertion, must be accompanied (not necessarily for publication), by the name of the writer, and, provided they are not offensive in any way, will be lublishect as space permits. The Editor does tot identify himself with the opinions expressed iy correspondents, and accepts no responsibility or them.] To the Editor. Sir, —In your issue of July 24th there appears a letter from Mr Jackson, commenting on the revival of railway matters in this district. It is evident that Mr Jackson's presence of mind is disturbed to an alarming extent, when he describes the proposed

railway tnrougn vvauewnena as a loop-line to the Main Trunk, twenty milea of which, he says, ;s already served by railway, ten milea at each end He altogether condemns it from a national point of view and also tells U3 that we are narrow-minded, having no consideration for our fellow sufferers. Now, sir, I don't think we are entitled to all those compliments from Mr Jackson, for some reasons of which the following is a sample. About four years ago, when there was a trial survey being made of this route, and in the agitation for which Mr Jackson took a very prominent part. He had the best wishes of everyone for the good work rendered by him in travelling over nearly the whole distirct with a petition for signatures favourable to this route —"with a proposed branch line from Pio Pio to Kawhia." The same Mr Jackson now says this is a ridiculous proposal; that there are ten miles at each end already served by

railway. By this reasoning it is not necessary to construct the first and last ten miles of railway between two given points. We would not want a through connection, as, for instance, a line from Hamilton to Kawhia, which, he says, is being asked for. If we take ten miles off each end there would only be a very shurt distance in between. I am aorry to see how much his broad-minded national spirit suffers at his own hands, when he says that by rousing the settlers north of the Mokau and infusing them with his national spirit he hopes to defeat the parochial spirit of idea of a Te Kuiti-Mangaroa railway. Such is not our intention, nor our disposition to wards the southern Kawhia district, or its residents. But we hope by our efforts to secure for our district, which is a large one, and the most closely settled in the King Country, with the worst roads in the Dominion, a railway, which is recognised by the best authorities in New Zealand to be one of the greatest importance. It will relieve haulace over the heavy grade on the Main Trunk line, which at a point is about eleven hundred feet higher than anything on this proposed line. It will also bring us in touch with the market of to-day for our produce.not where x there may be one fifty years hence. —I am. etc.,

D. FINNIGAN Kaeaea, August sth, 1912.