Wellington's Future.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IX, Issue 9, 9 December 1884, Page 2

Wellington's Future.

[Timaid Herald.] In the course .of a few months, the Wellington and Manawatu railway will be open, and the traffic at Wellington will be very great. The construction of the Trunk line, moreover, will make an immense difference m a year or two. In short, the whole of the railway arrangements at Wellington will have to undergo a complete change befqre very long ; but what that change will he, cannot possibly be determined at present. Our belief is that the opening of railway communication between Wellington and the West Coast and the interior will produce results such as are not at all fully realised as yet, and such as have not been experienced m other parts of the colony. In other places, there was some communication ; m Canterbury and Otago, for instance, there was good road communication between the country districts and the ports before the railways were made. But m Wellington there is practically no communication, except of the rudest and most backward descrip- j tion, between the port — one of the finest m the world— and the rich districts I along the coast and inland to the west and north-west. The railways over the Bimutaka to the Wairarapa was a huge \ blunder, though even that has done a good deal towards the development of trade. The opening of the other line, which is destined to make Wellington the qentre of the railway system of the North Island, will virtually, therefore, gjve the county districts an adequate seaward oitflet for exports for the first time; and the effect of that, we are convinced, wiJJ be somewhat snarling,