SIR JULIUS VOGEL ON THE CONTINUATION OF OUR RAILWAYS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 1014, 20 December 1881, Page 4

SIR JULIUS VOGEL ON THE CONTINUATION OF OUR RAILWAYS.

The Dunedin Echo publishes another “ suppressed ” letter from Sir Julius Vogel. It chiefly deals with personal matters, but ultimately proceeds "to speak of public works. Referring to the Premier’s uncertain and indefinite utterances last session, Sir Julius Says : —“ Frankly I must differ from the way in which you banish into the remote future a question to which, in my mind, the good faith of the Colony is pledged. Those who have made vast fortunes out of the railway policy must remember that they owe the railways adjacent to their lands to the Colony’s credit, and that that credit was given because it was believed in all parts of the Colony that the scheme of trunk lines would be fulfilled. There is no reason whatever why the fruition of the original plan over a moderate period sliould be delayed. Properly placed before the British public, such a scheme would be welcomed. Railway enterprise has made enormous strides during the last few years. Money for railways'in America, remote from settlement and civilisation, is being supplied at little over 4| per cent., and money to any reasonable extent would be forthcoming for railways in a British colony backed up by the contingent guarantee of the Government. As a matter of fact public opinion all over the world has justified the policy of New Zealand, and you are now living in infinitely better times for giving that policy effect than when it was commenced. It would be a sad thing for New Zealand that timidity and selfishness should stand in the way of a complete and early development of a thoroughly effective system of railways. Depend on it, if the Colony will make the railways, the railways will make the Colony.”