THE KING COUNTRY PORT

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 690, 29 July 1914, Page 7

THE KING COUNTRY PORT

The Editor. Sir —I notice a number of Hamilton residents are getting up an agitation for a railway from their own town to Kawhia via Raglan. These who have been over the country such railway'would traverse will be quite satisfied with the impracticability of the scheme unless at a cost the funds for which are never likely to be forthcoming. But the project brings up the question: Which is to be the ultimate shipping port for the King Country? At the rate settlement, clearing and cultivation 'in the King Country is going on there will be in a very few years vast quantities of butter.cheese, wool and meat for freezing produced in this district and it will be a matter of great importance to get it shipped at the least possible coat. To send it to Auckland for shipment from say, Te Kuiti, as a central point, would mean 126 miles of railage to pay, or no Waitara when the Ongarue-'fara-eaki line is finished, say 150 miles, tither of which would be a heavy tax. Nature has, however, provided us with a port almost at our doors, which, with a moderate expenditure —moderate as compared with the cost of forming the harbours of Timaru and Oamaru —could be adapted to accommodate ocean going vessels. The port of Kachwhia is some 25 miles only from the Main Trunk line where it passes throuh the King Count/y, and a short railway w<suld bring the bulk of the King Country within 30 or 40 miles of a port for their produce, while if the Hamilton-liaglan-Kawhia line could be made the distance King Country produce would hnve to be railed by that route would be over 90 miles. It behoves all King Country residents to bestir themselves and use every legitimate means to push on a scheme for providing for , the least expensive plan for getting I their produce shipped, for, in the near l future, I am convinced they will be rivalling Canterbury, Otago . and I Hawke's Bay in their.output of produce. I venture the scaeme I have outlined will be found practicable and i highly advantageous.—l am, etc., KING-KAWHIA