Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper, on the West Coast. TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1884. THE CENTRAL ROUTE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 171, 17 June 1884, Page 2

Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper, on the West Coast. TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1884. THE CENTRAL ROUTE.

The Wellington morning paper is inclined to qnestion the authenticity of the Auckland Heral^L, corres r ponden it's information anent the; <iecision pf the Minister ; of Pubiie.) Works with regard to the Central Railway Route, and deems itneees^sary to caution the public as to the manner m which the said correspondent's statements should^ be iebdivi cd. The first telegram-^that the" Minister will strongly recoriimend to Parliament the working of two lines, the Ministerial organ m Wellington " has the best authority " for denying entirely, and further that " there is no report, properly, so called, m existence. It goes on' to say :— We understand that '« Mr, M i tchelson/ has^a mass of ynates^ of one sort and another, which /were taken during his. tour of obseryatipnii but that is^ all. We are m. a position to state further that the subjectf I has not yet been brought before thet Cabinet* and that a very' large jSor-% tion of the Herald correspondents communication— by far the larger portion — is utterly without foundat'on . . . There is one amall piece of prosaic information which we can ourselves lay before the public — namely, that the engineers' maps and reports shewing the nature of the country and the estimated cost of the lines, are either complete or on the point of completion, and will, m all probability, be laid before Parliameut early m the week. In conclusion, we may say that we have very little/ doubt that when the recommendation of the Government is made it will be found that preference has been given to the central route," We still think the . correspondent of the Auckland" Herald must have had some data as a foundation for the telegram he sent to our Northern con tern pbrary. The facts and figures, distances and localities, as set forth m the telegrams were too circumstantially described, m our opinion, 'to have been purely imaginary ; and the correspondent of the Auckland Herahl is too experienced a, journalist, and has a too well-developed sense of responsibility, to hazard a statement on such an important question to be afterwards proved foundationless, or to damage his professional reputation by drawing on his imagination or idle tumour for facts. Whatever sources of imformation he has obtained access to, we are firmly. r convinced that his description- is too substantial m detail to be totally devoid of truth or: foundation. He may have obtained certain information that the Wellington journals were unable^ tq do, wherefore, probably, their attempts to decry his statements as unreliable. We shall only be too pleased to find that he has been misinformed, but we fear his surmise fif only a surmise,) will be found to very nearly ; approach the facts that will be embodied m the official report that will be laid before the House. On the other hand, possibly, the correspon- ' dent may have been used as the un- ■ conscious means of ventilating the 'Minister's views, just to see how they would be received by the Colony, and if adverse to public opinion, they could be "altered to suit." However, there is some satisfaction m knowing that the question will not probably now be dealt with until next session, by wjiich me the respective merits of the;, varibug routes should have been made more generally public.