FOXTON-SANDON TRAMWAY EXTENSION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 900, 4 October 1910, Page 4

FOXTON-SANDON TRAMWAY EXTENSION.

The following is the conclusion of the debate in the House on the proposed tramway extension petition. In our four previous issues Mr Craigie’s motion that the petition do lie on the table and receive the favourable consideration of the Government, and Mr Newman’s amendment that the evidence be printed together with the Hon. Mr Millar's evidence before the Committee, also Messrs Newman’s and Feild’s speeches, the Hon. Millar’s reply, Mr Hogan’s and Mr Guthrie’s speeches were recorded :

Mr Poole (Auckland West) said be bad an interest in this matter. He was surprised at the honourable member for Orotta being unpatriotic enough to give the palm to Palmerston while representing Feilding. He had listened very attentively to the debate, and was convinced that this was a matter that required the very closest scrutiny and consideration. The honourable member for Patea had tried to emphasise the fact that competition was fairly divided between Foxton and Wanganui so far as shipping was concerned. He had not lived in the district so long as the honourable member, and did not pretend to know as much about many things as the honourable member, but he knew that if you had two ports competing tor the trade of the locality people who were shipping goods were not going to send them over the Wanganui grade when they could run them over a shorter line. The honourable member must realise that the haulage was so great that the other route would be infinitely more convenient. That was said for the purpose of drawing the debate aside from the main question. He thought a great deal was to be said in favour of the present administration of the railways. The Administration were responsible for the proper manipulation and administration of railways worth They had to find the interest on the cost of the railways, and they had to be run at a rate that would pay it; and he was satisfied to accept that position, and was not anxious to advocate the policy provided by members on the other side of the House—-that they should be put on a paying basis, as in New South Wales, where they accounted for a profit of a year. Ou the Government side a great many believed in running them at such a reasonable rate that the settlers got full value for their money and would be able to compete in foreign markets with their exports. This request for permission to connect with the railway line at Greatford was the final policy of an enterprising number of settlers; but it must be recognised the only justification for connecting the tramline with the main line was the diverting of the traffic from the main line, and thereby reducing the revenue of the Government. Was that not the acknowledged position ?

An Hon. Member : No. Mr Poole said they were not innocent enough to believe that. There was the prospect of so diverting a certain amount of traffic that the line might have the monopoly of goods, and by-and-by you would find the proprietors of the tram making overtures to the Government for the sale of their property at a terriffic figure — charging tor a value that had been created by national money and enterprise. He was anxious to see every means of transportation placed within reach of the settler ; but they, as an Assembly, were responsible, in the first place, for the administration of the various Departments of State as efficiently and as economically as possible. Honourable gentlemen must recognise that every possible occasion was taken in the House to attack State-owned concerns —to diminish their value iu the eyes of the public, and to interfere with their efficiency in every shape and form; and here was another attempt being made to depreciate the value of a State-owned enterprise. An Hon. Member: We are offering to sell to the State.

Mr Poole said that was so, and he knew the reason they were offering to sell to the State. They were offering to sell because they knew they could make a profit out of the sale, and thereby interfere with the finances of the Crown. An Hon. Member: No. Mr Poole had no doubt about it. This was a light line, and, as had been pointed out by the Minister of Railways, and also by the Member for Wanganui, the whole line would have to be reconstructed. There was no guarantee of safety if they were to run trains on 4©lb. rails ; and a line like that, when brought into the hands of the Government, would have to be reconstructed, which meant that a double price would have to be paid for the railway. He was opposed to this particular extension ot a line for the tapping of their trunk system, for two reasons: (i) Because of the loss ot revenue and the deflection of the traffic which had been legitimately secured by the operation of the State railways, and (2) because he was advocating all the time an extension of the railway system in the north of this Island. In the North there were thousands of people in the back settlements who had no road, no railway, and no waterway that could be used properly for the trausportation of their produce and stock to market; and here where there was a line in existence that was satisfying effectively the requirements ot well-to-do, progressive, and enterprising settlers, they were asked to spend the country’s money in the resumption of this line when the money might be spent on other works in the North.

An Hon. Member said the Government was not being asked for a penny. Mr Poole said, Oh, 5 7 es they were ; one of the overtures was that the Government should take the line over in lieu of permission to extend the line to connect with and bleed the Main Trunk line at Greatford. He was opposed to anything of the sort, because he had pledged himself to secure all the available money from the Government for the extension of lines and roads in the North for the convenience of settlers there. The Opposition posed as friends of settlers in the backblocks; yet they asked for public expenditure where the roads were as flat as a billiard table, and where the settlers were well served by a trunk line and by a waterway ; and when honourable members who were not supposed to be sympathetic with the country settler —he referred to the city members—advocated the expenditure of State money on new lines for the benefit of settlers away in the North the honourable members opposite tried to hold them up to ridicule. He was surprised at the honourable member for Oroua, and the honourable member lor Patea, and some other honourable members; and he trusted the matter would be allowed to drop, and the money now looked for and the loss of revenue that was being advocated would be refused and prevented, and that there would be some more expenditure in the North, which was only right, in view of the necessities of the people. Mr Buick (Palmerston) said he must say a few words on this occasion, because something was really going to happen. His two colleagues on this side and himself were at loggerheads on this question, and he thought the House should understand the reason. He wanted to say he absolutely concurred in the action of the Hon. the Minister of Railways, but he did not like the honourable gentleman’s arguments, and he would tell the House why. The Minister argued that because this line would take a bit of trade to the Port of Foxton he was against it. He held that if that line of railway was only going from Greatford to Foxton, it would be a good thing for both places , but they all knew it was only the thin end of the wedge, and that what they wanted was a further extension to Levin so as to get a loopline between Levin and Greatford. And he thought that would be a bad policy for the State and for the country. He thought they must put in their little peg now while the scheme was in its infancy, and stop these deluded individuals near the Bulls racecourse, and round about there, from getting the idea that they were going to get a Levin connection, because they were not. They were told that Saudon wanted this connection ; but Sandon had already got a connection to Foxton, and he did not think they wanted a connection to Greatford, because everything went south and not north —even the railway expenditure that the honourable member for Auckland West wanted. He would point out that Rongotea and Himataugl also had this connection. He might say that he was interested in Himatangi, and he did not want that connection with Greatford, but he did want it with Foxton, and not with Levin. He might say, further, that he was not at all in accord with the action of the Minister in regard to the Foxton harbour, but he would have more to say about that another time.

Mr Forbes (Huruum) said that as a member of the Committee, and as one having had the privilege of listening to the whole of the evidence in connection with this matter, he must say he was a good deal in sympathy with the wishes of these settlers, and he did not feel the same apprehension as to the effect it would have on the railway traffic that the Minister of Railways evidently had. He believed they should endeavour to extend as much as possible all railway facilities into the backblocks ; and when they came to a district where the settlers were prepared to construct a branch railway themselves, and all they asked was that it should be allowed to connect with the Main Trunk line, he felt that before denying them this right there should be very grave reasons indeed for doing so. It should not be refused simply because, perhaps, it might be used as an opponent of the Main Trunk line, because he thought the position was thoroughly safeguarded in this respect. This tram-line did not run to the Port of Foxton. The connection with the Port of Foxton was over some miles of Government railways, and the Government had full power in their own hands. If they found that this line was entering into competition with the Government line, and that goods were going down over this tram-line into Foxton, then the Government had the power, when these goods came over their portion of the line to reach Foxton, of putting up the rates, and so preventing competition from that source. Se he did not think the position was as grave as the Minister stated. There was no doubt that this counection would undoubtedly benefit the settlers who wished it, because they would then be able to send their goods up the line as well as down. j At this stage the adjournment I came, and the matte' was talked I out. |