TUNNEL UNDER CITY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 474, 2 October 1928, Page 7

TUNNEL UNDER CITY

SURVEY WORK NOW COMPLETED EARLY START ADVOCATED (THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Monday. The Morningside tunnel project was again brought up by Mr. F. N. Bartram in the House of Representatives during to-day’s discussion of Public Works and unemployment. On this occasion Mr. Bartram made tangible progress in that he drew an admission from the Prime Minister that a survey for the job is now completed. “I would like to suggest,” said Mr. Bartram, ‘‘that this tunnel, which is essential to the metropolitan railway development in Auckland, should be gone on with at once. In 1924 Mr. Coates made the statement that the saving in working expenses would almost pay the full interest on the cost of its construction. In view of that statement it seems passing strange, particularly when it was also said that work would be commenced in 1928, that even now the survey work is not completed.” Mr. Coates: Yes, it is completed now. Mr. Bartram: At last we have got something from the Minister. At last the survey has been completed. It is refreshing to know that he will not again be able to advance the excuse that the survey work has not been completed. Almost every week I receive inquiries from my constituents, who desire to know whether the railway will go through their backyards. There has been something very dilatory about this survey, but now it has been completed I hope the work will be taken in hand soon in view of the serious unemployment situation in Auckland. I appeal to the Prime Minister to give us a definite statement on his intentions. The Hon. K. S. Williams, Minister of Public Works, said that he was now considering whether some working force and plant could not now be utilised to allow the tunnel to be started. He did not want to disorganise the existing camps.