A FUTURE WAIKATO

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 49, 20 May 1927, Page 10

A FUTURE WAIKATO

IMMENSE FOREST AREA ARRESTED DEVELOPMENTS Between Lake Taupo and the Main Trunk Line where it runs for a length of 50 miles through the Lower King Country is a great forest belt, some 2,000 square miles in area, which is destined to come into cultivation in the future, and the produce of which will flow through Auckland and help to maintain her pre-eminence among the cities of the Dominion. Several timber companies are at present at work on this great block, driving their loco lines like tentacles into the heart of it and taking out the timber. There is, however, a huge section of it which is the most promising of all, the development of which has been held back for the past twenty yearsthrough the inability of a company which had obtained timber rights over it, to secure the capital necessary for its exploitation. The proposals of the company the Tongariro Timber Company— were ®ca big scale. They included the buiM~ ing of a railway line, 40 miles long,, from Kakahi to the lake —with its terminus at a spot about three miles ironr Tokaanu. Enough capital was securea to make a trial survey of the lm which was successfully done by tne late Mr. Sealey, while a very exhaustive examination of the timber c ? nn *3, held by the company was made by late Mr. R. P. Greville, till recent# Commissioner of Crown Lands for tn North Auckland District. It is rougny some 16 miles by 10 miles, which out to something more than 100, uw acres. The amount of limber it co - tains is estimated at 2,000,000 ft. In 1908 Sir Robert Stout and Ngata were appointed a commissi to report on the proposed railway, a* their report was as follows: “We are of opinion that the agreement is in the public intermit will be the means of bringij’Jfl a great area of land practice / lying waste into profitable use, n only to the owners, but to t Dominion. The railway propose will be the means of opening up new district and helping ment. Seeing the great advantag which will accrue both to Maori owners and to the Donum * the Government and Pari**"* should, in our opinion, lend tne beneficent aid to the speedy exec tion of the agreement.” The formation of a fire scenic way along the upper reaches . Wanganui River which would De . used by tourists is an additioruducement to go on with the senem • The company agreed with the £ *. owners to pay them a royalty oi ’ „ a year, whether the project v' n ried out or not. This sum n i eV ies greatly cut into by the rating vvhen of the Taumarunui County an - m . divided up among the various ants does not amount to mUC “.* _ been For 20 years the company n jj ern e, endeavouring to finance tn® vea r* but has not succeeded and t - re ago the government insistea miles of the railway being ® th« within the following two ye& r» Jts company would be liable to a nd rights. This has not been don the natives growing restive kah j & cided at a meeting held in veS ter* few days ago and reported They day’s SUN to cancel the cf^rt^orpoTappeal to the Government to of ate all their lands so that horro* directors might be forced fT-auP®’ money and build the railway