FEILDING.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5351, 22 May 1878, Page 3

FEILDING.

■ pinion OUK OWN COBBBSPONDENX). The announcement that the railway to Wanganui is to be opened for general traffic on ’ Monday next.rejoices the hearts of the men of PeUding, especially of the men who own sawmills. tip to the present time we have been, for all practical purposes of .trade or social intercourse, further removed from Wanganui than from Wellington itself. Next week the ■iron horse will make us neighbors in that fullest sense of the term which a common interest os well os n close proximity implies. Our Wanganui friends have been apparently as anxious aa we are for the completion of the last link in our communications. In fact they have not been able to wait for the opening of the line, and for the last month train after train of heavily laden timber trucks have been , passed over the unfinished portion of the railway by night from Feilding, in order to supply the pressing needs of the builders in Wanganui. Nor is it for sawn timber alone that drafts are -< being made upon our many thousands of acres , forest. Prom every side I hear - ■ ■ rt. ■> orders given for the supply of thshevof all" kinds.; One business man at Halcombe informed me to-day that he had engaged to send two thousand cords of fire- . wood to a Wanganui firm ; another, that he had taken a contract from the Government to supply 80,000 sleepers for tho Patea railway ; and a third, that he had an unlimited order for fencing posts. - These facts, and the projected establishment of no lass than three new saw- . i mills oil the Manchester Block, in addition to the six which are already at work, may be accepted as an earnest that the iron horses on our line will not be. allowed to rust for want of use ; and, which is even of greater importance to us, they seem to prove that willing hands will not need to go far afield to find profitable employment. The whole of our working population is already fully employed, and a large influx of labor will be required to get through the bush felling this winter, and to supply the trade which tho railway creates. I note with much satisfaction that, the timetable tor the trains’ 1 has been so altered as to give ns two through trains both from Wanganui and Pox ton daily. By the old timetable the convenience of the settlers along the line was sacrificed to a desire to get the Wel- . lington moils through to and from Wanganui in the twenty-four hours, Cobb’s coach being still • allowed to crawl at asnail’sgallopalong the beach to Poitou. It is high time that an end should be put to this travesty on mail-coach travelling; and if-it is necessary, as it is, that the West , Coast mails should reach their destination with reasonable speed, and passengers be carried with some regard to their comfort and convenience, let the condition of the subsidy given to the mail coach be that the journey to Poxton from Wellington be done hi the time which good , teams running short stages, and not carrying passengers on the coach roof, can easily do it ; then, with the'preseufc time-table on the railway from Foxton, both mails and passengers can be run through from Wellington to Wanganui in the day. It is a comfort to see that at last some little - stir is being made to' improve our overland communication with .Wellington. It is a marvel to me that the people of the West Coast have for so many years put up with the miserable track which at present affords their

only means of reaching the capital overland. - It is. monstrous, that after thirty years of set- ’ tlement oar only route—l cannot call it road —lies along a soft and uncertain beach, over still more soft, aud uncertain sandhills, and into mudholes, quicksands, and tidal rivers; as to the softness of which there is no uncertainty at aIL ; In;a- distance, of fifty miles; the only attempt at road-making is one shaky bridge built, and a-few chains of metalled road through tho village of Otaki. I see that on the suggestion of some ingenious but evidently inexperienced reformer, the Government has called for tenders for a daily steam service .from Porirna harbor to Poxton. The storm of the last week will probably suggest to the powers that be the wisdom of withdrawing tho advertisement. We do not want ■ out mails blown over to Queen Charlotte Sound for a week ; nor do we desire to ascertain by personal experience how a flat-bottomed steamer, drawing four cr five feet of water, would behave on the Manawatu bar in a gale. • What the West Coast people want, and

what they are entitled to demand, is that their overland road shall be improved, and improved at once. , ’ What ;is required is an inland road from Poxton to Otaki, and again to the Paikakarika Hill, or through the Waikanae route to the Upper Hutt. Thus avoiding all the beach, crossing the rivers ont of the influence of the tides, and where bridging is easy, and shortening the distance very considerably. A West Coast railway is suggested, and must soon be commenced ; but to complete such a railway . would take some years and a large expendi- : tore. The" road I suggest could be’completed in a year, at a cost not exceeding £30,000. It would open np a block of first rate country ; it would be the means of settling a population on the land, mnch of , which belongs to the , Crown ; and, strange as it may appear to the »-, traveller on the present dreariest of rou(es by sand and sea, it would he one of the most beautiful drives in New Zealand. ,We have had an unexpected invasion of bankers of late. Our old friend of New South Wales has been rudely disturbed ' in his snug monopoly. The Bank of Australasia has bearded him in his den at Peiiding, and get a safe in a commandin' position on the 1 opposite side of the street; aud simultaneously the Bank of New Zealand made a sudden advance upon Halcombe, and has set up a rival ' Standard there. Is this a sign of good times ? ,i i Surely our plunder must he getting' worth division, or their would not bo so eager a rush for a share of the spoil The elections for the local school committee

come off to-day, but few of the electors know anything about it, or seem to take much in- ; tezest in the matter. It is to be hoped that the now committee will not let matters slide as the old committee have been doing of late. The present school accommodation is miserably insufficient, and I am informed on the best authority that from forty to fifty children have been doused admission, simply because there is not only no sitting room but hardly standing room for the scholars who are in attendance • now. We want a schoolroom capable of hold-' ing 250 children at least, whereas the present room Iff not able to carry more than 80 chili dren with any degree of comfort to themselves or their teacher.

’ The , value of land about I’eilding is rising very fast, A sale was made last week by the Corporation of about 230 acres of suburban , land adjoining Feilding. Applications were p i made four and five deep for some of the sections, which were sold at prices varying from . £1 i 15s, to £7 per acre, giving an average of £9 355. per acre, sis every section was bought ,i by Betiding residents, this is a very fair test of the-value put upon the land by persons who ■ are the best able to judge. !