OUR PROPOSED RAILWAYS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 30, 19 August 1871, Page 11

OUR PROPOSED RAILWAYS.

We solicit the attention of the Southern members to the following considerations, which we think should have some weight in determining their votes, when authority is asked for the construction of the proposed railways and tramroads in the province of Wellington. The more money expanded on such works in the North Island the less will be required for defence purposes, towards which, as colonial objects, the. South will be always legally and morally bound to contribute its fair quota. The larger the number of settlers introduced into the North Island, and employed on public works, the smaller the risk of future native outbreaks. The larger the number of natives employed on such works the fewer there .will be inclined. for that mischief, which we are told Satin finds for idle hands to do. The larger the number of settlers introduced into the North Island, the greater and the more remunerative the demand for the farm produce of Canterbury and Otago. The Southern farmer now finds in Northern settlers his best customers ; then how much more likely is this to be the case when their number is increased, and the cost of freight reduced to onetenth its present amount? Timber is now taken from the Wairarapa to Canterbury ; but how much more extensiye

must this trade become when its cost is ; reduced to one-half the price now willingly paid for it ? The Wairarapa railway would virtually bring the totara forests of the Wairarapa and Upper Manawatu in close proximity to the timberless plains of the South- and it, would thus prove as beneficial to Otago and Canterbury as to Wellington.! These are only a few of the advantages which the construction of the proposed railways and tramways in this province will either directly or indirectly confer on the people of the South. There can be no doubt about the paying character of such works. A railway between Wellington and the Wairarapa would not have to compete for traffic with the coastal steamers, as would be the case between Christchurch and Dunedin. This, in the opinion of Mr Richmond, is a very important consideration ; and so it is; yet it sinks into insignificance when the amount and paying nature of the traffic on a line between Wellington and the Wairarapa is contrasted with any likely for some time to exist on the main southern line. A ton of wool of the value of £l5O would pay no more to a railway than a ton of timber of the value of £3. Thus timber, as furnishing traffic and yielding income to a railway, is fifty to one better than wool. For the same reason, it is ten to one better than flax, and three to one better than flour or grain. Yet it is from the freight on these articles that the South expects an income to, cover the cost of her railways. For this reason, a railway from Wellington to Wairarapa would be likely to prove ten times more remunerative than a railway between Christchurch and Dunedin. It will take years to create a traffic on the latter line; an enormous traffic exists in embryo on the former, and only requires this means of transit to infuse into it life and activity. At a rough estimate, 100 tons of freight now passes weekly between Wellington and the Wairarapa, without iucluding that between Wellington and the Hutt; how much that would be multiplied by the construction of a railway, by the creation of a lumber trade, by the transport of stocks, and by the opening up of large and fertile districts for cultivation and settlement, we need not stop here to enquire. What we wish more particularly to impress on Southern members is the fact that the harbor of Wellington is the only natural outlet for the produce of the southern half of the North Island; and that a railway is absolutely necessary to utilize, so to speak, so splendid a port, and so extensive a country.