The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 1929. A LOGICAL DEMAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 616, 19 March 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 1929. A LOGICAL DEMAND

IITHEN the Hon. E. A. Ransom congratulated a deputation at " Paeroa yesterday on the logic and force with which it had arrayed and presented its arguments, he might have added that the task of the deputation was made very much easier by the convincing and unanswerable nature of its facts. To present a cogent argument on behalf of a scheme that has every factor of economic and technical expediency in its favour is not difficult. Ear more awkward and embarrassing would be the task of defending the gross procrastination exhibited in the failure of successive Governments to bridge the yawning gap. Had the Minister undertaken this responsibility, and performed it with a reasonable show of logic, then he far more than the deputation would have earned congratulations.

Unfortunately, all he could do was to beam amiably upon the members of the deputation and congratulate them on their forensic skill. Beyond that he could only give the usual stereotyped assurance—the United < Ministers have fallen into the ways of their predecessors as to the manner horn—that he would place the matter before his colleagues in the Cabinet. With a gleam of sardonic humour, he added that those interested should bestir themselves to keep the question prominently before the Government. None better than a politician who spent years in Opposition should know the value of this belligerent counsel. It should not be difficult to follow the Minister’s injunction, for every passenger who travels from Taneatua, Te Puke, or Tauranga as far as Paeroa, and then detrains to complete the journey to Auckland by service-car, is an argument in favour of bridging the gap, just as the passengers who fill the Thames and Paeroa-bound service-cars that leave Auckland every night are also an effective argument, while every ton of freight carried by motor-truck and small vessels between Auckland and the Plains is a better reason still why a railway should be constructed, and competition between the railways and private interests placed at least on an equal footing.

Anyone who studies a time-table will soon begin to wonder why it is that any passengers at all travel by train between Auckland and Paeroa or Auckland and Thames. This is no reflection on the management of the railways or the speed of the trains ; but it is manifestly absurd to hope that a system which has to travel 127 miles (the distance by rail to Paeroa) could compete with one that has to travel only 82, which is the distance by road, and would also be the distance by rail if the loop-line were constructed. At present the express that leaves Auckland at 9.30 in the morning arrives at Paeroa at 3.7 in the afternoon, whereas a service-car that leaves Auckland at 3 p.m. arrives at Paeroa in ample time for dinner. There is all the difference between what is virtually an all-day trip and one that occupies three hours, and the margin against the handicapped railway explains why the Bay of Plenty railway, so far from being an incorporated factor in the trunk system, remains a fragmentary appendage. It will remain that until the Paeroa-Pokeno gap is bridged. Though there may be minor hurdles to overcome upon the unconsolidated swamp lands of the plains, there are no real engineering problems in the way, and the only hills to be surmounted are a few gentle undulations near Waitakaruru. If the Government that is prepared to push railways at all costs through the mountain barriers of the South Island, and across the deep gorges of the North Island East Coast, cannot see the logic of the demand for this utilitarian link, then its vision must be nearly as distorted as some of its jaundiced critics suggest.