KUMARA AND THE RAILWAY DEVIATION QUESTION

Kumara Times, Issue 3014, 1 July 1886, Page 2

KUMARA AND THE RAILWAY DEVIATION QUESTION

[to thk editor.] Sir—The opposition of some of the Hokitika people to the railway line being carried past Knraara is a thing that no person not directly in the confidence of the said people, can understan 1. I have endeavoured to ooi.sider the subject from the point of view in which it w-.u'd present it-elf to me if I were a llukitika merchant)

and this is the result. Most of the goods I require have to be brought from. England, and if, when the railway is opened, I have to obtain them via Grey mouth, they will have first to be shipped in London to Melbourne, Sydney, Dunedin, Lyttelton, or Wellington ; there they will have to be stored and then shipped afresh to Greymouth, and be forwarded from thence by railway. If the railway is made direct from Canterbury to Hokitika, via Kumara, the goods will be shipped in London for, say, Lyttelton, will be delivered from the ship's hold into the railway trucks, and discharged therefrom into my store at Hokitika. Surely this will be a much cheaper and better process than the double shipment, with all the attendant expenses of freight, wharfage, commission, and intermediate profits. It may be said that goods could be sent equally well from Lyttelton to Greymouth, aud so on to Hokitika by the beach line; but it must be remembered that the distance from Rocky Point via Greymouth is double what it is via Kumara. Again, as to local traffic: If the beach line from Chesterfield to Teremakau ia adopted, with a branch to Kumara, that branch is certain to be made along the course of the present tramway, and thus the advantage will all be ia favour of Greymouth over Hokitika. Another thing that puzzles outsiders is that the Hokitika people are always clamouring for money to be Bpent upou their harbour works, and yet they say that when the beach line is made they will obtain all their goods from Greymouth. There is no doubt that if the beacb line is adopted, Hokitika will become, as was predicted by Mr Stont, "a mere suburb of Greymouth." By the direct line via Kumara, Hokitika will be nearer to Lyteltbn than Greymouth will be, and it will have every chance of remaining the capital of the West Coast, instead of dwindling down into an out-of-th«-way village at the end of a branch line from Greymouth. I have no personal interest in the railway, but I cannot, as a looker on, but see that the Hokitika people are making a great mistake, and I hope that they will see their error before it is too late,—Yours &c, Spectator. Kumara, June 29, 1886.