Whose Territory?

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 621, 25 March 1929, Page 8

Whose Territory?

Auckland Clings to East Coast Trade

the Government completes the Xapier-Gisborne railway line. Auckland may be robbed by Wellington of most of its trade with the East Coast, of which it now enjoys practically a monopoly. City merchants are now keen to complete the rail link from Auckland to Gisborne to offset Wellington’s pending commercial advantage.

jpOR about 40 years the Poverty Bay

and East Coast districts have been almost exclusively the commercial territory of Auckland business houses, and it was not until some days after the Prime Minister’s decision to push on the Napier-Gisborne line that the full significance of the project was realised. No complaint has been levelled against the present coastal cargo service from Auckland to Gisborne, but the comparatively easy freights and

quick delivery of stuff resulting from direct rail communication between Gisborne and Wellington would deliver a vital blow at the Auckland-East Coast trade connection by attracting business from the Southern end. The detection of this lurking danger has galvanised Auckland business interests into a violent advocacy of line extensions between Taneatua and Opotiki, and further south through Motuhora to Gisborne, so that Auckland’s commercial association with Poverty Bay and the East Coast districts may be retained —even though the venue be altered from ship to rail. It is difficult to calculate in pounds, shillings and pence, exactly what the loss of this trade would mean to Auckland, but an indication of the business transacted with the Poverty Bay capital from here is given by the tonnage going into the port and the share which Auckland has in its disposal. During last year the port of Gisborne received 67,000 tons of cargo across its wharves, the whole of this coming from coastal ports. Four steamers a week are carrying Auckland’s share, and one boat comes from the other end of the island with Wellington’s quota. A transference of the business, therefore, would hit the

average of district trade from this | city heavily. General merchandise is not the only class of goods affected in the Auck-land-East Coast trade. Live stock, reared on the slopes of the Poverty Bay hills, are now driven over the dread Motu ranges and into the grazing pastures of the Bay of Plenty areas, but if rail communication were established with Gisborne, the stock could be transported by train. Fertilisers, too, go from Auckland in large quantities to enrich the Southern pastures for maize growing, which, in turn, would provide freight on the return journey. ROUGH COUNTRY TO FACE Practically the whole of the present j goods traffic to Gisborne is sea-borne; 1 all passenger traffic is by road. If the rail took the goods traffic, then, it would herald a meagre future for the small vessels which are now plying on the coastal run. The rail from Taneatua to Opotiki, approximately 25 miles, would cost something like half a million pounds. Rough country besets the way of the construction engineer, and economists doubt the efficacy of the project as a financial proposition for the State. Further south of Opotiki a stretch of about 50 miles of some of the roughest land in the island has to be covered. The treacherous Motu mountains, the dread of rail-builders, was side-tracked by the Government in a recent survey, and an alternative route designed through the Waioeka Gorge. Even this course, though more feasible than the Motu, will occasion much thought for the engineers who are chosen for the job. Merchants see in this East Coast controversy an analogy to the struggle for the Stratford-Ongarue branch, which, they declare, was held up for 15 years because of Wellington’s reluctance to open Taranaki’s front trade door to Auckland enterprise. THE ETERNAL STRUGGLE “When this line connects with the Main Trunk, Auckland will have a chance to deal directly and quickly with Taranaki,” one business man said. “We do not want to see similar delay occasioned in linking Auckland with Opotiki and Gisborne. As soon as Wellington gets direct rail communication with Poverty Bay the trade which has been almost exclusively Auckland’s for nearly half a century will disappear, unless we also have a line.” It is recorded that the good roads from Napier to Gisborne has taken some of the trade from the Northern end of the island and given it unto the Wellington business houses. The tendency in recent years, in fact, has been f ■'■»* Auckland’s commercial connection with Poverty Bay to decline. Complete railway access to the East Coast will, like most railways, provide a field of liot commercial controversy, and each end of the island will naturally fight for its share of the business. Wellington cannot be blamed for its avaricious designs upon Gisborne's trade, but Auckland possibly has a better case in striving to retain what has been established as the well-earned fruit of 40 years’ standing.