GOOD-BYE TO THE RAILWAY STATION.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 9 August 1880, Page 2

GOOD-BYE TO THE RAILWAY STATION.

We are informed by our Wellington correspondent that no provision whatever is made in the Public Works Estimates for the erection of the long-promised railway passengerstationinOamaru. For years successive Ministers have acknowledged the absolute necessity for additional station accommodation ; for years hare they recognised the fact that the convenience of the department and the safety of tho v.- •>mr.K«s'.sd a new building s.t f-'■ j ' ::v----railway srr.tioi) in eu >r-m wwii, ,nni providing for the comfoi-i 'or travellers, should be erected ; aiul fov years have they promised that the work slioul i be gone 011 with without delay. Twice has the money necessary to erect the station been voted by Parliament, and Mr. Macandrew and Mr. Oliver have both, in their capacity as Minister for Public Works, assured deputations that these votes were really meant to be expended. Both had surveys made, and both declared that the commencement of the work v/as only delayed b, the preparation of the necessary plans. Mr. Oliver was particularly emphatic upon the matter, and do? clared that there was no humbug about him ; what he said he meant. Parliament had voted the money and he was determined that it should be expended. He even went so far as to express approval of a site and declare that he would give imperative instructions to have the plans prepared, tenders called, and the work started at once. He was not going to allow the vote to lapse. ITO, the station was urgently required, and he would have it erected. But what was the result ? Time passed by quickly, no plans were prepared, tenders were not called for, and the vote lapsed. Now, after all these promises, after all these recognitions of the urgent necessity for the building, after 'all these declarations'of earnestness, the matter is to be allowed to pass into oblivion so far as the present Ministry is concerned. The vote is not to be renewed, and Oamaru must bid good-bye to the oft-promised and muchrequired new railway station.