FIFTY YEARS AGO

Manawatu Herald, Volume LI, Issue 4428, 18 March 1930, Page 3

FIFTY YEARS AGO

' ITEMS FROM “THE POST.'’

THE FOXTON RAILWAY.

“UNDERTAKEN OR PROJECTED.”

Fifty years ago the “Evening Post” made a strenuous fight for the immediate construction of the Wellington-West Coast, or Welling-ton-Foxton railway, which the Hall-Atkinson Government showed no disposition to push on at all actively. “The Post” returned again and again to the attack.. Writing (9th March, 1880) under theOieadiug, “The Royal 'Commission and the W|est Coast Railway,” the editor observed: “It is to a certain extent satisfactory that the Wellington and West Coast railway, which is the natural and reasonable desire of every Wellingtonian, is occupying the first attention of the Royal Commission appointed to report on the economic value and paying capabilities of various lines undertaken or projected. We are not quite sure under which category this line, should be placed. We are told by the Government, on the one hand, that they do not regard the line as ‘undertaken,’ and that the £40,000 vote which they took from Parliament last session for a portion of it was designed merely to provide work for the Wellington unemployed. On the other hand, we are also told by the same authorities and almost in the same breath that £9OOO of. that vote has been actually expended, or at any rate ‘set- aside,’ for the purchase of rolling-stock for this lipe in nubibus. Our readers may possibly be able to ‘put this and that together,’ but we must confess our total inability to reconcile the two statements.

“SCANDALOUS WASTE OF MONEY.”

“If a vote of £40,000 ,was taken and has been spent all but some £2OOO on a railway which is regarded as not yet ‘undertaken,’ and the undertaking of which is deemed still an open question, then we can only characterise such a proceeding as a scandalous waste of public money. It can in no possible way benefit the colony or the people of Wellington that £9OOO should have been spent on rolling-stock, £SOOO on a bridge, and £24,000 on labour in making cuttings, piercing tunnels, and forming embankments for a railway which may be shelved for

a number of years. ... If the expenditure was intended merely to relieve the local distress, the unemployed could have been much more profitably put to work on some undertaking which really was intended to be carried out. . .

It is broadly-asserted by some people that this rolling-stock had been ordered for another line altogether —that it has been charged to the £40,000 vote for the WjdlingtonFoxtou line merely to save too much expenditure, and that when the apparent saving has been effected, the financial year ended, and the West Coast Railway shelved, the rolling-stock will be quietly transferred to some Otago or Canterbury line. This, we say, is implicitly believed, and openly asserted by some people; but we cannot accept this as a probable explanation, for it would imply a system of double-dealing and unfairness which we hope has been got rid of with the late Ministry.” LAND TO BUILD RAILWAY WITH.

Again, on 12th March, 1880, under the caption “The Labouring Classes and the West Coast Railway,” the editor declared: “Surely if there is money available to he frittered away pu such political railways as the Nelson-Grey mouth, the Thames, Kaipara, Livingstone, Gatlin’s River, Toi-Tois, and other gross Parliamentary jobs, a sufficient sum ought to be forthcoming for a main trunk line, which promises to be one of the most profitable in the colony. Out of the remaining balance of the Five Million Loan, the sum required for this important work should be set apart and scrupulously devoted to this object, and our representatives in Parliament ought not to rest till this is accomplished.” Failing that, the editor of “The Post” made the following suggestion: “There is admittedly a large amount of land along the route of the line available for settlement, or capable of being rendered so at no great expense At the

present time there is a large amount of surplus labour in the colony. Why should not this be utilised by being employed in the construction of the WJest Coast railway, the men’s wages being applied to the purchase by instalments of small holdings for them along the railway line? ... A

system of issuing Government rations and clothing could be adopted, such supplies to be charged for a regular rate, and deducted from the wages due, the balance going in payment for land. . . . W'e can discern ho valid reason why the idea thus roughly sketched out should not ibe shaped into some practical scheme which would answer the threefold purpose of constructing the Wiest Coast railway at a small cost, and with very small actual money expenditure, while at the same time providing employment for a large number of men, and facilitating the genuine settlement of the country by an industrial population. We are quite satisfied that the plan is thoroughly practicable if taken up and prosecuted with zeal, energy, and judgment.”