THE HOKITIKA AND GREYMOUTH RAILWAY DEVIATION.

Kumara Times, Issue 870, 15 July 1879, Page 2

THE HOKITIKA AND GREYMOUTH RAILWAY DEVIATION.

[to the editor.] Sir —ln reference fco the railway contour or deviation to Kumara permit me to observe that the District Engineer, in apposing it so persistently and with so much obstinacy, fails to take into account the more important item of a railway concern, viz., the returns. His stand-point is simply this ; Straight line, easy, and cheap. As agent or servant of the General Government, he acts well his part. Railway for the Coast had to be begged for, session after sesssion; conceded, not through love not through feelings of justice or sense of political economy, but more for getting political support. Hence the instructions for a cheap line j hence the obstinacy of the representative. Not a word about the traffic in goods and passengers ; not a word about the returns—short distance, grades, level ground, and trunk line are the constant arguments ; they are everything. The three thousand people in Kumara and environs, the compact settlements of Waimea, Stafford, Arahura, and Kokotahi are nothing as compared with a short route through fUMuiderness. Kumara is the centre of forest country ■ Kumara possesses blocks of granite, of any size, and ready for the truck. This granite would ballast the line, macadamise oiir roads, form breakwaters in the port of Hokitika, ami make substantial houses. The line through Kumara would traverse a i~

immense tract of silver pine country ; "would reduce the cost of living on the dl 'gg in gs, which of necessity must come if we are to work the large amount < f auriferous ground which exi-ts all around Kumara; machinery, tools, implements, horse-feed, &c., would be cheaper, and help in the work of extracting the precious metal as the cream of it is diminishing. A telegram informs us that Mr Blair has been delegated to report on the deviation: so far so good. But we must not put much confidence in Mr Blair. Engineers have their mission, and we have ours. They have their ■way of thinking ; they often play the servant above theirjineans Our mission consists in looking out for our ■welfare and our right. It is our right to differ with the engineer; we are the parties interested in this matter. We belong to the railway, and the railway belongs to us. Therefore, unless the Unpropitious weather of the last two .years, the commercial depression, the bank squeeze, and the losses sustained has totally destroyed that vitality which is so characteristic of a mining By all classes in nearly all their ventures, community, let us call public meetings in which the sophistry and the dust of the so-called arguments in favour of the coast line will be fully exploded. Let us send to our Assembly petitions signed by the whole population 3 and if we are to be sacrificed we shall have protested in proper time and our children will not have reason to say that in the year 1879' an epidemic of lunacy overtook their fathers. Aux armes citizens. J. Bladikr.