The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1873.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 37, 11 February 1873, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1873.

An article appeared in the Bristol Times of November 16 which contains certain statements and ideas that are to some extent applicable to the existing state of things in New Zealand. It was written with a view to advocating the construction of light lines of railway in those parts of the country where the more expensive lines would not answer owing to the absence of sufficient traffic. "It is plain," says the paper before us, " that in districts like those of Somerset, Gloucester, and Wiltshire, where the population is thin, where the towns are few and far between, where we have no manufactures, or next to none, and very little trade, or at least very little in comparison with that carried on in the North and the Midlands, no line of rails can pay which costs what the Great Western and the Bristol and Exeter cost to construct. If districts like these are to be brought within compass of our system of railways, it must be by the construction of tramways or of light loop lines, costing very little to make, and still less to work." The necessity of establishing some such communication appears to have been recognised by the Chambers of Commerce in the principal towns in the South-west Counties, and that of Exeter has already taken action by sending an engineer to visit all the light lines in England to find out which of them is best adapted for Devonshire. That which appears to have taken his fancy most is a short line of seven miles recently laid down by the Duke of Buckingham upon his estate in Bucks. It was opened on the Ist of April, 1871, is worked under contract by a local firm, and already pays 14 per cent, on the original outlay. It is argued that if a line of this sort can be brought into such order as to pay a dividend of almost double the amount paid by the best of the main lines, there is no reason why what has been done in Bucks should not be done in Somerset, Gloucester, Wilts, and even in the hillier districts of Devon, if the engineers will only take Stephenson's hint, and follow the rivers instead of going out of the way to court engineering difficulties. The following' is a short description of the line and of the traffic thereon : — " The width of land taken is about 19 feet, the rails are laid on longitudinal sleepers six inches square, with transoms and iron ties 12 feet apart, weight 301 b. to the yard, and are secured to the sleeper by fang-bolts. Where the line runs through arable land it is not fenced, and even on pasture land posts and rails are thought enough for protection. There are no stations, but at each main road-crossing there is a siding for trucks, the platforms are simply banks of earth retained by sods, and the passengers pay their fares and take their tickets from the guard upon the plan of the steam packets. The cost of construction, allowing nothing for the land, was less than £1400 per mile; and expense of maintenance, allowing for tools and everything else, is less than £400 a year ; and the working- expenses for the current year, -with an allowance of ten per -cent* interest upon ; the engines are set down at £650. The traffic consists of coal, road metal, manure from

London, and general goods inwards : of hay, straw, grain, timber and bark outwards; of cattle inwards from Hertfordshire in spring, and fat cattle to London in winter; and the earnings, for the year are estimated at about £1400. The rates are low upon agricultural produce and minerals, London manure, for instance, being brought all through at the rate of Id; per ton per mile, and the goods average 4d. per cwt'.; and at those rates the traffic is increasing every month. It was not originally intended to carry passengers at all, except persons with cattle and the workmen on the estate, but so many have sought to avail themselves of the accommodation, that the passenger carriage was borrowed, and put on in January, since which the numbers carried have been : — lO4 in January, 123 in February, 176 in March, 224 in April. The populations of the villages accommodated are : — Westcotf, about 150; Ashendon, about 300, Wotton, about 220; Dorton, about ISO; Brill, about 1,400." We cannot do better than quote the concluding paragraph of the- article before us, in which advice is given that is well worthy of the attention of the New Zealand colonists as well as of the inhabitants of the older English districts to whom it is specially addressed: — Of the value of a line like this in the agricultural districts of Somerset and Gloucester it is hardly necessary to say a word; for high farming is out of the question without the means for cheap and quick transit for lime, manure, &c, as well as for the produce of the farm in' return. Intersect the country in all directions where a foothold can be found with a line of rails like this of the Duke of Buckingham, and where that is not possible with a wire tramway or a single suspended rail, and an impulse will be given to the work of agricultural improvement which will in ten years turn every English farm into a garden, rents will rise instead of falling, as they threaten to do now, -the profits of the farmer will be increased, the increased wages of the laborer may bo paid with ease, perhaps still further increased, and every market in the country will be well stocked every morning with fresh produce of all sorts, at a price at which no foreign producer would think of competing with our own agriculturists. But if these light lines are to pay, they must not be made, as most of our main lines were, harumscarum, and perhaps the Chambers of Agriculture and Commerce caa render us no-better service than by taking them into their own hands, considering how and where and upon what plan they can be made with the best promise of success, petitioning Parliament for the necessary alterations of the law. and preparing the public to take the work into its own hands with a clear idea of what it is about when the matter is ripe for action, and when all that is necessary is to call in the engineer and the contractor with his theodolite and his pick-axe to do for the villages what Stephenson and Brunei have done for the towns.