SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1904. OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. The Favoured South and Neglected North.

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 230, 26 November 1904, Page 6

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1904. OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. The Favoured South and Neglected North.

AT the banquet held on Saturday to celebrate the completion of the North Island Central as far as Taihape, the Premier gave some play to his imagination. He said he might still be Premier when the line was complete, between Auckland and Wellington. It is a very steep order, for, at the rate the line has progressed until lately, King Dick would need the years of Methuselah to see it through. For snail-like mo\ement this railway easily beats all colonial records. • * And yet, m his Taihape oration, Mr Seddon said the work was of the greatest importance to New Zealand. Moie than that, "the non-existence of communication between Auckland and Wellington had been a reproach for far too long." It is a tardy admission of a glaring injustice. In April next it will be just twenty years since the first sod was turned of the Marton-Te Awamutu railway, whose length of 210 miles was to open up vast areas to settlement and link together the two great seaports of the colony To-day there is much rejoicing because in twenty years a length of 120 miles of the line has been finished. • • • No wonder the Premier confesses it is a standing reproach. There are still ninety miles to open, and of these fifty-four miles are untouched The two leading cities of New Zealand, which it should have been the aim of a wise and progressive public works policy to unite by rail, remain yet distant and disjoined from each other. • * • How great the contrast m the South Island ' The railway line if unbroken almost throughout its entire length. Christchurch and Dunedin were brought into direct connection by rail actually twenty-six years ago Just think of it, and marvel. It was an open, level, easily-roaded country, and the line skirts the littoral. In the North Island the iron horse was an imperative want to open up a virgin country far from the seaboard, most difficult of access, and otherwise almost impossible of settlement. • • * Yet, look at the strange and culpable unfairness of treatment as between North and South. The South Island, with the lesser population and the fewer needs, has 1425 miles of Government railway The North Island, with the larger population, far greater requirements, and far better adapted for close settlement, has only 900 miles of Government railway. No dispassionate critic can deny the present Government the credit for achieving more to raise the standard of comfort and improve the conditions of life in New Zealand than was accomplished by the combined efforts of all their predecessors • • • But they have not made restitution to the North Island for past maltreatment. Every year there is attached to the Public Works Statement a coloured diagram showing the number of lines of Government railway open m North and South Islands respectively. Since King Dick presented his first Public Works Statement m 1891, the pampered South has had 285 miles of

railway added to its huge dispioportionate share, and the starved North has been stalled off with a beggarly 200 miles. Small and trumpery lines like that from Hokitika to Ross are started and pushed on in the favoured South, while the great North Island Central lags wearily on its course. * • • Let us hope the Ministerial sentiments expressed at Taihape will outlive the banquet. Mr Seddon has admitted the reproach of keeping Auckland and Wellington sundered Be it his ambition to make haste to wipe out that reproach Mr. HallJones prophesies that Taihape is destined to be a second Palmerston North. Let him show the faith that is m him by translating it into action. * * * The Premier called attention to the fact that since the opening of the Awarua block there was not a single acre of its vast area lying idle except the ranges and the native reserves. All is settled, but by no means roaded. That is the kind of country m the North which has been waiting for the railway to blossom like the rose and yield abundantly We are glad the line has crawled as far as Taihape, but we shall be gladder still to see the Government get a bigger move on, and run it through the still incomplete gap. * It is only fair to state that during the last four years there has been a change from lethargy to some degree of activity in connection with the North Island Central In 1901 the appropriation leaped from £46,000 to £116,000. In 1902 it was £184,000, m 1903 £134,000, and this year £196,000. There is room for still greater bustle and activity It is up to the Government to complete this long-delayed and highly-important line with the utmost possible despatch. Let them concentrate their efforts and expenditure upon it