THE NORTH ISLAND CENTRAL RAILWAY.

Patea Mail, 21 June 1882, Page 4

THE NORTH ISLAND CENTRAL RAILWAY.

The Auckland Herald speaking of the East and West Coast route for the Northern trunk railway, says “We shall be most ready to hail the making of the Taranaki line, no matter at which end it may be commenced, as soon as there is some reasonable degree of certainty that it will be completed through the King Country. It is plain that, as yet, we know very little about the chances of pushing the trunk line through the King Country. They may be better than we fear, but there is an equal chance that they may prove worse than we hope. If borrowing could be postponed for .12 months much good might be done to render our course plain, and, in any case we should avoid the risk of letting our Southern friends get a twelve months’ start of us in expending borrowed money. It may be long before we are again prepared to borrow, and if the money now raised should be frittered away upon the Otago and Canterbury branch lines and other like projects, this Island may languish for some years in the future as it has done in the past, under the shadow of an imaginary Native difficulty, which really means lack of Government energy ami public money, such as is displayed and expended without stint in the sister Island.” The same journal states at the same time that the alternative scheme, via East Coast, should not be shut out of consideration, if the West Coast line is not practicable, (irough the Native difficulty.