The Invercargill Times. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1864.

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 48, 26 February 1864, Page 4

The Invercargill Times. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1864.

The subject of our Railways seems likely to attract the attention of the Provincial Council. The first dip into the matter appeared to stagger the adventurous elf who made it. He seemed to have a hazy impression that the floating liability" of £100,000 was the result of our Bailway, while on the contrary, it is the horrid result of oilf. road-making policy. "When tlie Invereargill and Oreti Bailway was first proposed, it met with serious opposition, and it was only on the supposition that on its construction depended keeping open the Lake traffic during the winter months, that it was finally passed. Country members considered that the interests of the Province were sacrificed to the aggrandizement of the capital. It was stigmatized as a flour and tea line, a storekeepers line, &c. Everything that could be said in its disparagement, i was said. Country members dug up the hatchet and would not smoke the calumet. Fortunately it was ultimately carried and its opponents chewed the cud of mortification. Setting aside for the present, the advantages likely to accrue to ourselves from the adoption of main trunk lines of railway through the Province, instead^ of roads, we will inquire into the experience of our neighbors, and endeavor to benefit from it. One of the ablest of our colonial governors, Sir "VV. Dennison, when G-overnor of New South "Wales, entered into the matter with a minuteness of detail, which showed the interest he took in the subject, the importance he attributed to it. In calling attention to the actual cost of carting on the main roads in New South Wales, Sir William draws the comparison between ordinary roads and horse railways, advocating the adoption of the latter. Taking the returns of traffic on the three main roads from Sydney, the Northern, Western, and Southern, he demonstrates the loss resulting irom bad roadsj in the increased rate of cartage, arguing therefrom the justice oi spending a certain sum per mile for the construction of horse railroads. To quote Ms words, " along these three lines, which may be considered the main arteries of communication, the loss to the inhabitants of the different districts, occasioned by the badness of the roads, amounts,- 071 the transport "of goods, alone, to -£268,517 per annum ; and were a horse rail-road the means of communication, the saving, by the iise of it,'wouldainoipit;to£33B,l'7s per

attdtmi. dPki^ 1 liav-S ftaid^ is the mitii* mum amouiit. - 1 liave allowed liotliliig for the increased expense' to passengers, 1 have said nothing of : tlie diminished value of; land. I have,, merely taken ! the returns of existing ta'affie, and have \ shown that the saving in tHe expense > of conveying it ; would justify an outlay of capital on these three lines, amount-^ ing altogether to '"< 843 miles, - of dßfljS'/OjS'AO in making turnpike roads, or of £6,763,500 in the construction of railways, that is, of £6,370 per miles upon the one, or £8,000 per mile upon the other. "• The cost of making a roadj Sin "William averages at £3000 per mile 5■ to keep it' in Repair, Australian experience has shown, averages about £300 per mile. ) 'The cost of a horse railroad, he considers/ will not differ much- from that Of a turnpike road, while keeping it in repair would be infinitely less. After entering into minute calculation as to the relative cost of construction and. working of the two systems, we find that the conveyance of goods; -and passengers costs 250 per cent more;by turnpike road than- by the horse Tailroad. Sir William draws th^e following conclusions from his calculations':— " Ist. The cost of transport by a turnpike road is in excess of that by a a railroad, whether such road be worked by horse-power or steam; " " 2nd. The cost of steam power is much less than that of horse power upon railroads, but this cheapness is, with a limited amount of traffic, more than compensated for by the increased cost of construction and maintenance, if such roads be compared with those on which horse power maybe used.-"' On this view of the matter, Mr. A. Fitzgibbon writes, " Sir William Derinison has not considered the case of railroads of narrow gauge, worked by locomotive engines of nine to ten tons weight, now coming into use, the cost of which per mile, would very little exceed that of the horse railroad which he recommends for adoption in New South "Wales." The belief is gradually growing into conviction, thai; in all new countries, it is cheaper and better to construct, if possible, main trunk lines of railway at moderate cost, in the early stages of the colony, than dissipate the revenue iv making roads to be finally superseded by railways. If the large sums of money spent on the roads to the diggings in Victoria had^been expended in the construction of cheap railways, the saving to the country would liave been enormous on the transport of goods alone, not to mention that after all this expenditure, lines of railway are being run parallel with these roads. The great bugbear is the fear that tliere is not sufficient traffic to warrant tlie expenditure on a railway. Setting aside the fact that railways create traffic, it should always be borne in mind, that when their construction does not greatly exceed in expense that of roads, tliey are an actual saving. The facilities of transport are increased, the cost diminished, their maintenance in repair less than that of roads, while they are more reproductive. The Americans seized upon this idea with their usual sharpness, and gained advantages from it. If a new district was to be opened up, they ran a line of railway at once into it, not a lvad. Thus the cost of transport was lessened to such a degree, that it paid to cultivate the interior, and consequently it became j^eopled. Let us inquire how this question affects us. If- the cost of a macadamized road averages in Australia £3000 a mile, its maintenance £300 per mile j per annum, what will it cost here ? There stone is abundant enough, quarries can be dug close alongside the line of roacl, tlie stone for pitching and metalling it, does not require to be carried a long distance before it is deposited ; here -it is far othei*wise. Without a quarry within miles of Invercargill, the chief expense in macadamizing a road, is the carriage of the metal from the nearest quarry, at tlie Mokomoko. Exj>erience has shewn tlie utter futility of gravelling main lines of road. If it will answer tolerably for light traffic, heavy traffic it will not bear, to attempt to make the trunk roads in the Province with gravel, is merely casting bread on the waters, which, after many days, will not return. We have been roadmaking ever since the Province sprang into existence ; a few thousands on this road, and a few hundreds on the other, have been voted away session after session, and no one has missed it, or thought to inquire what our roads, qr rather — apologies for sueh — have cost us. The sum, nevertheless, is a respectable one — between £111,000. and £118,000. Up to the 31st January last it was £107,137 4s. 7d.,*and we fancy that this month we can safely put down the expenditure under this head at something over £5000. This includes bridges, a not very formidable item. Out of this total for roads, the G-reat North Road claims a tolerable share, viz., £35,742 17s. 4d. Thirty-, six thousand pounds expended principally from Invereargillto Winton Busb, nothing to show for it, except the skeletons of fascines, admirably adapted for tripping up the unwary horseman. We do not say that the money has been misspent through incapacity, though doubtless we bave not escaped tbe blunders .' incidental to all young places j but we think it is a pity the Oreti Bailway was not commenced last summer. Much, time, much money would have; been sared had it been. One - hundred and thirteen thousand pounds gone, and not a road in the Province. Some members in the Provincial Council are horrified at .the idea of being asked to pass a loan ordinance for £100,000 or £140,000 to construct a railway, yet half that sum is muddled away on roads in one year. In the year ending 30th Sep-

•teiabe*, rggS, $8 , sfcefc-fe 6h ' iloftaS £82,700 odd, atid never within the recollection. Qf'^fe^ colonists were the roads so frigjjfejMjiy bad as they were last winter, true the traflie on the roads wafjpavier than ever it had been before j-tyvit the expenditure' on roads was a^g'-flye times heavier ; and this expen4jti;ure' proved totally useless. wepß the heavy traffic along , the mam lines of road taken off by ( railways,' .the natural roads would, at i trifling expense, be kept open throughout the- -year, and answer for light carriage .or, horsemen. The impression that%e ntusi wait till the country is older and the traffic increases, we nave shown is" an erroneous one. In a"few years' time we shall have dissipated in roads, tfioney^enough to have made railways along > the lines where the heaviest traffic .is, and there will be nothing to show for it. When we have made the railway, there is something for the money. Besides, the railway will always be of immense advantage to the inland districts in carrying up, at a cheap rate, metal for the by-roads, which otherwise it will be impossible to make, and thus be the means of opening up the interior in more ;vvays than one. The difficulty experienced in all young places of being able to raise at one time a sufficient sum for the construction of such large works, is now obviated 'by the principle recently laid down in the G-eneral Assembly, that any Province wanting to borrow must hypothecate a certain quantity of land. Thus the drain on our current . revenue is not directly felt. The advantages of cheap - railways to us may be summed up as follow:-— Their construction is little, if at all, more expensive than a good macadamised road would be; the former we can undertake at once, the latter not. The former is more directly reproductive than the latter. By the former the cost of transport is immensely lessened, while maintenance in repair is a third of what the latter requires. The Americans have proved by their success that the secret of pushing a colony is to make railroads first, roads afterwards. We hare it now in our power to follow their example. Let us recollect we have spent £113,000 in roads, and nothing to show for it.

« We have received a telegram from our Bluif correspondent containing a summary of Northern news, taken from the Otago Telegraph -Extraordinary, intelligence having been received in Dunedin by the Airedale from Auckland. An engagement had talcen place with the Maoris at Waikau, but the result was not known. Prom Mere Mere, intelligence had been received that the 50th regiment, under the command of Colonel Waddie, had an engagement with the Maoris, in which the latter were defeated, with a loss of twenty-four killed, and a number wounded. The loss sustained by the troops was very insignificant — only four killed and five wounded. The greatest bravery was displayed by the regulars. Au ambush to entrap the Maoris had been very successful. It had been reported in Auckland that an escort, carrying a portion of the Governor's luggage had been fired upon by the Maoris. In consequence of an insufficiency in the supply of food to the troops at the Front, the men had to be put on short rations for nine days. It was estimated that at the Front, G-eneral Cameron had an effective force of 8,000 men. It was currently rumoured that the Tauranga natives were assembling in large numbers ; but the troops were all in readiness to receive them.