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Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1230, 27 March 1880, Page 2

Wellington" is in a precarious plight. Business is about as bad as it can be, and is not likely to improve until the next session of Parliament. The Post, in the performance of it 3 duty as a public journal, impresses upon the Government the necessity of opening Up the interior of the iSTorth Island, so that "Wellington may be the great emporium of the major part of the fertile lands of that Island. At one time the Post pats the Government on the back—at another it applies the lash. The " unemployed " difficulty afforded !it a pretext for urging its arguments with increased warmth, as !a means of saving hundreds of men and their families from starvation; the blocking up of the Wellington-Master-ton line supplies it with another reason why the West Coast railway should be !at once proceeded with, Y?e admit ! that, if the Colony had the funds to ; devote to the construction of this line, for the sake of the southern portion of the North Island it should be made, although Wanganui views the matter differently. But tliis West Coast railwas is one of a number of railways of the same kind to proceed with the construction of any of which at the present juncture would be suicidal. Wellington has no more right to this railway than some other portions of the Colony have to those the construction of which has been stopped from sheer necessity. The Government should refer them to the Commission, and wash then* hands of all responsibility.