Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1922. RAILWAY DEVIATION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2389, 7 February 1922, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1922. RAILWAY DEVIATION.

PARLIAMENT has sanctioned an estimate for the Palmerston railwaydeviation, but it is a foregone conclusion that'very little money will be available to proceed with the work for some time to come, and things may happen which may modify the proposed work, the estimate for which is very vague. Every one agrees that railway' facilities at Palmetto# must be improved, and in this copnectiop there is no “dog in the manger" attitude by advocates of the national scheme, i.e., the linking up of the main trunk line between Marlon and Levin. What the Commission failed to ascertain was the comparative cost of either schemes one having fl. national, and the other a purely local bearing, To allow the Public Works Department to enter #pon the Palmerston deviation without « definite knowledge of the cost is unthinkable, yet this is what is being asked by parochialists. The estimates for the national : ,nd local deviations, together with Mr Hilev’s scheme for rsdifiyyjg Palmerston’s railway congestion, should have been made clear before Parliament /‘o,ramitted itself. Elsewhere in this Is/see we publish- Mr Newman’s review of firs whole question ,which expresses a fair and reasonable solution.