AN IMPORTANT WORK. North Island Main Trunk Railway.

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 11, 15 September 1900, Page 6

AN IMPORTANT WORK. North Island Main Trunk Railway.

PREMIER SEDDON is to be congratulated upon the more practical attitude that he has adopted towards the North Island Main Trunk Railway. This work is no petty provincial one. It is an essential part of the colonial trunk railway system, and is as important to the South Island as it is to the North. Sir Julius Vogel promised, sixteen years ago, that the work would be hastened towards completion, and that the line would be opened for traffic in 1890, but ten years have elapsed since then, and the railway is nearly as far from completion as ever. • * * In view of the delays that have taken place, and the snail's pace at which the work is progressing, the dissatisfaction in the House and the country is not to be wondered at. Some vigorous system of construction is necessary if the line is to be completed in our time, and, in urging this, the North Island Members are not asking anything unreasonable. Mr Seddon appears now to have caught some of the contagious enthusiasm, and is prepared to complete the line in four years, with an average expenditure of a quarter of a million per annum after the current year, the expenditure during which latter period will amount to £170,000. w • * In one respect, the attitude of the Premier towards this work has been unfair. He is not prepared to hasten it at the expense of other lines ; or, in other words, he requires that there shall be a corresponding expenditure on other lines of railway, as a matter of justice to the rest of the colony. This sounds fair enough at first blush. But, as a matter of fact, the other parts of the colony are not entitled to consideration as against the North Island Trunk Railway. The money for this line was borrowed sixteen years ago, and was specially ear-marked, but a large part of it has been spent for colonial purposes apart from this railway. The North Island Railway

fund is now entitled to the repayment of that money. • • • N Also, when this million was raised, a further two millions was borrowed for other railways, and was actually spent upon them. So that, as a matter of fact, the other railway lines have already enjoyed their set -off against this North Island Trunk Railway, and are not now equitably entitled to any corresponding expenditure. We do not urge that there ought not to be expenditure — and liberal expenditure, too — on other lines. That would be a petty parochial contention at the best. But we do say that no consideration for other railway works ought to weigh against this North Island Main Trunk Railway, which occupies an exceptional position, and is essentially a colonial undertaking.

The completion of the line means a great deal to Wellington. This city has become the great distributing centre of the colony, and once the trunk railway is completed, the whole of the North Island will be thrown open to our trade. At present the Auckland market, with the prosperous country beyond, is isolated from us, and our merchants are handicapped in competition for the trade of those parts. The completion of the line will remove this inequality, and, besides giving us speedy railway communication with the northern city, will open up a large amount of intervening country to settlement and subsequent trade.