South Canterbury Times, THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2220, 29 April 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1880.

The agricultural .statistics of the colony afford an excellent index for the guidance of the Railway Commissioners and and the Government as to the direction in which railway extension should be prosecuted. The trunk lines have involved an enormous expenditure, and if they are to be made reproductive and the colony is to bo relieved of the burden of working its railways at an annual loss, attention must now be devoted to the branch lines. It is by the construction of these feeders in advantageous positions that we must eventually look to the trunk lines being rendered profitable. A glance at the agricultural returns for the present year shows that Canterbury, by her magnificent yield, offers unapproachable facilities for the development of railway enterprise. In wheat the yield is 5,501,400 bushels as compared with Otago’s 1,(509,250 bushels, and of barley Canterbury contributes 1,124,281 bushels as compared with 346,880 bushels grown in Otago. It is needless to refer to the districts of the North Island, flic area in cultivation there being limited. The statistics furnished give Canterbury a prominent place as the garden of New Zealand, and one of the chief granaries of the Southern hemisphere. As the railway returns of the colony depend ch icily on the traffic in agricultural produce, it follows that. Canterbury is by far and away the most promising field at the disposal of the Government for railway extension. The desirability of constructing railways where they are likely to he most payable has lately been forced on public attention. We confidently point to these returns as an unanswerable argument why railway works should be vigorously prosecuted in Canterbury in preference to any other part of Now Zealand. The figures we have quoted arc realised facts, anti very different from the statistical arguments that are brought in support of the inevitable railway schemes of the North Island. They point with the finger of certainty, the direction in which the iron horse must be urged, if the public lines arc to be elevated from their humiliating condition of; chronic impecuniosity. Our chief object at present in directing attention to these returns is to shew that while Canterbury offers unapproachable attractions for the investment of public, capital in railway works, its requirements have been sadly neglected. As an illustration of this we need only invite attention to the condition for some time past of one of the most promising lines in this part of New Zcaand. We doubt very much if there is another branch lino in the Middle Island that contributes more substantial results to the railway exchequer than the AUmry line. Since the construction of this line settlement has progressed so rapidly that the district through which it travels resembles an immense harvest field studded with homesteads. The original intention of the promoters was to combine this magnificent agricultural district with the splendid pastoral country beyond it. Singularly enough our railway contractors seem to have got bogged, or to have fallen asleep just in the midst of their work. The line terminates at Alhury in the very centre of an immense fertile plain. Reyond, in the direction of Burke’s Bass, twenty-four miles distant as the line is surveyed, is as magnificent a patch of country for agricultural settlement as the eye of man ever rested upon. Nearly the whole of it lies comparatively idle, for why? Because good roads there are none, and at the present Jpricc of grain it will not pay to cultivate land unless there is convenient access to the seaboard by rail. We are assured that any number of fanners and selectors are only awaiting the advance of the iron horse to follow with their ploughs and teams and families. The most singular thing is that the Hue has been formed for a distance of twelve miles beyond Albnry, or half-way to the Pass, and all that is needed, are the rails and sleepers to render a vast area available to the cultivator. The engineering difficulties in connection with the extension of this line arc so utterly trivial that it is difficult to conceive why the Public Works Department lias suddenly baited in the prosecution of this work. But for the circumstance that this line has been promised by a previous Government, and it was assumed that the present Ministry would endeavor to carry out the promises of their predecessors, we have no doubt steps would long ago Lave been taken to impress on the proper authorities the desirability of carrying out a work of such value and urgency. The extension of the Albury line has been delayed so long that public agitation has become necessary. With the prosecution of this line, the prospects of South Canterbury arc largely identified. Not only should the immediate construction of the line to Burkes’ Puss

be insisted upon, but an effort should bo made to prevail upon the Government to proceed with the lino as far as the Mackenzie Country. If we arc correctl.y informed, there are no great difficulties, bej r oml one or two moderately deep cuttings, in the way of making the line through the Pass, and thus connecting the hack pastoral country with the agricultural district on this side of the ranges. Until this is done, the line which has been begun, and so far is producing for the department most excellent results, cannot be said to be completed.