The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. "We nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice." FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1917 THE WAIUKU RAILWAY

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 340, 21 December 1917, Page 2

The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. " We nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice." FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1917 THE WAIUKU RAILWAY

The opening on Saturday last by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Public Works of the first section of the Waiuku railway marks a great step forward in the progress of trie western half of Franklin County. The prognostication by Mr Massey that in tbe not distant future a suburban service of trains will be run to Waiuku is an acknowledgement by one well fitted to judge bow eminently the attractive and picturesque country through which j the line runs is adapted for close settlement,, and we have more than once heard shrewd observers remark that at an early date the j milk supply for Auckland city will come from the Aka Aka i plains. When these two events occur Mr Massey's confidently expressed belief in the earning powers ot the line will be found to have been fully justified. Visitors from Auckland and other districts who travelled over the completed portion of the line to view the opening ceremony were lavish in their praises of the high quality of the greater part of the land the railway traverses, and one heard many prognostications about the largely increase*d population it is destined to carry In tbe near future. Many considerable blocks of land remain to be cut up iuto smaller farms, and the largely increased valuation which the opening of the railway is sure to bring in its train will make it difficult, if not impossible, to the owners to hold them intact for very long. We look confideutly forward to seeing the number of dairying and cropping farms along the route trebled before very long, and the production of the district enormously augmented by close cultivation. With regard to the completion j of the remainder of the* line the Minister for Public Works was rather non-committal in his remarks at Waiuku. He said he hoped to have it finished in a year, but would not make any promise. At the present rate of

working it will take several times that length of time, and there was nothing in the Minister's speech to show that he intended to alter either the method or the rate of construction. We are willing to concede that the Department has been hampered by the lack of suitable labour, but we cannot admit that an economical or even an intelligent use has been made of the labour available. There has not only been continual unnecessary loss of time by the all too frequent shifting of the men from one portion of the line to another, but the methods of working have been antiquated and feeble and altogether unworthy of a great Department which should be in the van of progress, but appears to lay hopelessly behind any County Council or even Road Board in its system of performing earth'ivork. Thousands of yards have been excavated by the aid of pick, shovel and wheel-barrow that could have been shifted in onefourth of the time and at onefourth of the cost by plough and scoop. The staff of men that has been at the Department's disposal was amply large enough to have | completed tfie whole work in the time had their labours been intelligently directed, and supplemented by the common laboursaving implements that are used by even small contractors. It is evident that the Public Works Department must be either thoroughly overhauled and reorganised or swept away, or the construction of railways will become so expensive that no after management in running them will , make them pay interest on their cest.

The bridge over the Mauku -stream is the heaviest single 3?lece ot , work on the line For more than two years the Department has been aware that steel girders would be unobtainable for it„ and that hardwood or concrete piers was the sole alternative. This is what is now in-

tended to construct it of. The rails reached the bank of the stream months ago, and it would have been thought that all would have been in readiness to proceed with the erection as soon as it was possible to get the materials to the site. But it appears the plans even yet are not prepared, and we fear it will be found that the greater part of the Minister's year will be taken up in building this single bridge. We were sorry not to hear on the day of the ceremony some reference made to the debt the district owes to Mr L. F. Shakespear, of Waiuku. It is well known that the railway was promised over Mhirty years ago, but the first two decades rolled away with the promise unfulfilled, and the hopes of nearly all concerned had diminished to the vanishing point. Then, about a dozen years ago Mr Shakespear, at that time a comparatively new-comer to the district, espoused the matter with energy, and we have little hesitation in saying that it is entirely due to his tenacious work for several years that the settlers owe it that they have a railway at all. In spile of the lukewarmness and even rebuffs of the many who had no belief he would ever succeed, he persevered until he had attained the establishment of the Waiuku Railway League with its branches at Mauku aud Glenbrook, and up to the time ot the authorisation of the line worked indefatigably in the furtherance of his project. We think some mentiou of his services would have been both becoming aud graceful.