FROM THE EAST COAST TO THE WEST.

Manawatu Times, Volume III, Issue 231, 26 January 1878, Page 2

FROM THE EAST COAST TO THE WEST.

Pakt 11.

(From the- " tf.B. Herald."} {Continued.) The course of the railway line is puzzlings till it is examined carefully on the map.. Through Palmereton,.fdr instance, itjlies west, of Wanganui, the Wanganui railway runs, out from it m a north-easterly direction.. The state of things can best be explained; by an imaginary diagram. Let us supp >sea. triangle, of which the base is the sea shore,, between Foxton and Wanganui. The vertex would beat Feilding, and the two. sides would be formed by the Tailway liness from Feilding to Foxton and from Feilding: to Wanganui, the first running through; Bunny thorpe and . Palmerston, aud r thesecond through Haleombe arid Marton.. The line between Feilding and Foxton ha* been open, for sometime past, and tlir t. between Wanganui and Martqn has just been opened. The only unfinished part between Wanganui and Foxton. therefore* is that between Feilding and Martoiv and that is being rapidly pushed on, and. wul be finished, it is said, within threemonths. If M"r Tracers can carry his WestCoast railway project, a line will be constructed to connect Wellington and Foxfon X which it is said would open up a great deal of good country. If it is made, our connection with Wellington by rail will be, m thefirst instance at any rate, by way of Buhnythorpc, Ptilinerston, and Foxton, instead of^ by the Waimrapa. The distance would besome w)iat greater for us that way than by the latter route, but the steap gradients^ — gradients of one m fifteen, I belieie — on each side of the Rimutaka tunnel would beavoided. The carriage of heaVy good* would therefore, on the whole, probably befacilitated by the longer oute. We, ii» Napier, are not quite sure what to wish for m the matter. Probably most of us would; not be sorry to .see the distance between- ourport and the Empire City still greater than it is, and the gradients to be got over still steeper. I am not among thosQ, however,. >ho dread that ourvmol and other produce,, if we ever Have any, will g« tit Wellington;, by miL The difference m cost between water and laud carriage ie too g»*eat tot tha*. ; .;

PALMERSTOX. There are some such other plrn-e* -a* Palmerston, I believe, m the w>vH. hu' none of them certainly have Imppum*:! to come under my observation. Four y«jar» ago it was the wilderness, or little hatter; now it has a population not- far -short of 2000. It. cover* enough ground for n city of twenty thousand. The Woodville ooich came into the township as we 'entered it, . and we thought we could not do better than follow it to its destination. It seemed to pass through at least half a dozert townships, nnd still showed no sign of an intention to pull up. XEhat it did pull up eventually, however, is a mttter of history. Beiuty of aspect or of architecture is not Palmerston's strong point at present;, but the juxtaposition of large, substantial, and sometimes handsome buildings with thecharred trunks of once gigantic trees, and the blackened logs that are thickly strewn over .the landscape, surrounded a3 the town is by the untouched and till recently unknown forest, gives a look of American goaheadness to the place, snoh as I have not seen exhibited by any other place that I visited. This impression will be still further confirmed m the mind of anyone who etays at the Royal Hotel at night, especially if it isi Monday or a Thursday night There eeemeq to be always a coach coming m or going k way either to or from Wanganui, or to or from- Napier, or to or from the railway wto Fofcton with passengers en route for WelJfcgtoii. Sleeping was not to be thought **o£- the landlord and hi* subordinates must lend the lives of printers, or of mothers with teething babies. Sir Gharles DUke thought that the warmth and humidity . of the climate was eon verting the, colonists of New Zealand into a dilatory and easygoing race. He evidently had not visited Palmerston, or stayed at the "Boval. Hotel. To tell the troth, there was no Palmerston to visit when be was m this part of the world. The timber trade is, of course, Palmerston's mainstay. The Messrs Brosjden have an interest m two of the saw-mills there. One of them was cutting timber to be used m some way. in connection with the Oamaru harhor works. Most of the trade hitherto has been with Wellington, and there.is some reason to anticipate that that may be cut into, more or less, when the Masterton line is open. For totara. however, plenty of markets are to be found by going farther afield, though possibly at somewhat less remunerative prices. The town rejoices m a mayor and corporation, and has recently gone m for a municipal loan of £10,000, the expenditure of which will, no doubt, help to keep things lively for a little. It has not been raised for any specific object, I believe, but forming the streets and .• effecting general improvements. -That, no doubt, is <he first necessity for Palmeratoh. Struggling municipalities like it, whioh have such an immense deal of work to do before they can make their borough reasonably presentable, should certainly be put m a better position as regards subsidies thnn old and established towns. They ought, at any rate, to get the £2 for £1 which 13 virtually gi»en to road boards m districts where the Counties Act is hung up. Palmerston boasts of its newspaper, the " Manawatu Times." I hear it is about to be enlarged. To judge by the state of its advertising columns, and -by the current report as to the extent of its circulation, it miißtbe Blready a very valuable property, and likely to become more so. It must take very cautious editing, I should say, to make the paper even moderately acceptable to the inhabitants of so many neighboring, and, inevitably, inore«or less rival townships. Imagine an editor, one of whose m:iin duties was to treat local questions m such a manner as to give com nlete satisfaction both to "Wnipiuvn and Wuipuknrau t Hewould not be a happy man;