NEW ZEALAND RAILWAYS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 10, 10 May 1881, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND RAILWAYS.

following letter from Sir Francis Dillon Bell appeared in the Economist on the sth March last : —

To'^HE EDITOB OF THE ECONOMIST

Sic, — I. ask your permission to siy a few words on one point which I think should be remembered in any comparison of railway expenditure as between Australia and New Zealand. In New South "Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, tbe settlement of the country gradually extended from the original centres of colonisation, which have now grown into the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide. The Governments of each of these colonies were able from the first to choose in whatever railway system they might adopt, and how far they would take their lines from the centres into the interior. They knew that wherever tlfey went the metropolis of each colony would always be the point on which the lines must converge ; and this condition $f their geographical position will always remain because Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide must always be a the shipping ports for the produce of the three colunie?. Tbe Governments could begin, as, in fact, they did, with some lilppj starting from th? metropolis,, and could choose their own time for extending their railway systems in any direction they pleased. Jt was not so with us. The colonisation of New Zealand went on, as it was sure to do in islands having such a long coast line and so many fine harbours from several points at once. We founded a series of detached settlements, so separated from one another that at one time letters were not longer in coming from England th»m they were in passing between Auckland and O.tago. There never was a centre of colonisation. To this day there is no metropolis ; Welling* on is the seat of Government, but is asmallertown than Christcburch or Dunedin. When, therefore, we first began to think whether there should be railways in New Zealand, we were forced, by a condition of our geographical position quite opposite to the one that existed in Australia, either to have a railway system meeting the wants of our detached settlements, or to give up having any at all. Our insular position, in fact, exacted a great more of live-build-ing than. would have served an equal population in any colony of the Australian continent. Our 1200 mileß of line should be attributed, then, less to extravagance than to conditions from which we were not free. We always said that from every tract of our land ■whose produce we enabled to be brought cheaply to our many harbours, we could raise more than the Australians could raise from an equal extent of theirs. If you say that we have been "going much too fast" in the friendly rivalry that is developing the wealth of the whole Australian group, please not to forget what a temptation to go fast Nature has given to a people, which possesses so genial a climate and so fertile a soil. — I am&c,

Fbancis Dillon Bell.