CENTRAL OTAGO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 25 August 1909, Page 10

CENTRAL OTAGO.

PI/EA FOR RAILWAY EXTENSION AND IRRIGATION.

Dr W. A. Ohapple, ex-M.P. for Tuapefca, writing from London on the Bt<h wit., says: — I buve just finished reading a long account of the Lawrence-Roxburgh deuptation to SLr Joseph Ward. It was of absorbing interest to me, as you may imagine. I cannot help thin-king that I might have been of some service to the Roxburgh .people in the advovacy of their cause, for I have sufficient confidence, as you know, in the resources of the district. I think a good case was made out for the railway, but I know wihat a strong prejudice there is in the House aigainst the work and the district. Members from otheT dis- | tricts have not got in their minds a conoeption of wifaat developments are possible in the Qlufcha Valley. It is not so much what it now is, but what it is destined to become. It is surely a ntew method of arguing the case against a railway in a new country that th© district is only proi ducing so muoh, and upon that producj tivity a railway would not pay. Had such ' an argument influenced the railway policy Tof Canada, railways would be practically unknown in that great country of eroterprise and progress. Private companies are there putting down railways in regions that have produced nothing in the past but 1 trees and Red Indians. Even in New Zealand the entirely new policy of requiring a district to show that upon its past production a railway would pay bedfo*e railway enterprise was sanctioned would, if it had been adopted in former days, have doomed our country to the status of an island of whaling and sealing stations. There is enough bard-headed enterprise in the OLutba valley to stock that fertile district with sufficient gairdons to supply the whole Dominion with fruit. The comparison with the- Otago Central is unfair, because fhe Otago Central, by its present route, was a blunder.- The enormous tract of broken and mountainous country tih.rou.g-h which that railway had to go before- it tapped anything- comparable to the Cluthe, Vaney saddled that line witii enormous disabilities that are not to be fouaid' on the Roxburgh line, and, moreover, the Otago Central travels rigiht through the rainless area. Roxburgh and the- Oluthu Valley are free- from Qiis misfortune, and, tihi&refore, show a higher fertility and gireafcer reward for industrial effort. I »m more than ev«r convinced that my earnest advocacy of irrigation in Central Otago and consequent closer settlement were essential to a continuance of the railway service. You cannot keep a railway alive without people and products, and if Central Otago had been preparing for these several years ago when the dredging showed the first signs of decay, instead of wasting her breath on the Hawea extension, she would be in .a better condition to-day ; but no errors in the railway and settlement policies of Central Otago can justify the great blunder and injustice that are being made in the stoppage of the Lawrence-Roxburgh railway. Moreover, the 'two districts are vastly different. The Clutha Valley has always gone in for soil production and fruit culture, and the district has been ready and ripe for a forward movement along these lines for years past, and, in fact, it has already set in in anticipation of railway extension. Otago Central, on the other hand, has been content with its gold production, and there has not been the. tendency to settlement activity that has existed in the Clutha Valley, nor has the same inducement prevailed because of the absence of water. In this connection let me express my amazement at Sir Joseph Ward's statement that irrigation in Central Otago would cost 30s per acre per annum. In Kg-ypt it costs 8s to irrigate the new area controlled by the greatest engineering- feat of modern times as represented in the Assouan dam. Many of tho most elaborate and complicated irrigation schemes in India and America cost about sf=. If it is goinp to coat 30s per acre in Central Otago. it if Soing to be unprecedented in the history of irrigation. I am collecting data aloncr these lines, and mnv nresent them to the public later if I think they are of sufficient interest and va.lue. We run up to London occasionally, and I hnvp entered into several engagements to deliver addresses at different parts, so theSx\ with the consideiable amount of wiitingr and sfurly I do, Icppp m« constantly busy, and I often find it difficult to keop up with my enprapemonts and the literary work I take in hand. We have added many interesting- friends on this side to our old list, and find lifp full of fascination and educative interest.