RAILWAY POLICY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 634, 10 April 1929, Page 8

RAILWAY POLICY

NEGATIVE results seem to have been achieved by the visit of the Minister of Public Works to the scene of construction work on the Stratford-Ongarue railway. If it was the sincere intention of the Minister to explore the prospects of accommodating more men on the work, he has failed in that purpose. There is no room yet for more men, he explains. Concerning the possible completion of the line within three years, the Minister was guardedly “optimistic.” There is wisdom in his caution, for the whole history of the line, ever since Eltham gave the late Mr. Seddon a particularly bad time at a meeting m the ’nineties—and was subsequently worsted by Stratford in the inevitable “battle of the routes”—has been marked by lack of enterprise and consequent delay. Except at rare intervals, the engineers toiling in the wilderness remain forgotten bv politicians, and it is now just 28 years since Sir William HallJones made the customary promises when he turned the first sod. But the people of Stratford and other centres that still wait hungrily for the rail connection should rejoice, possibly, rather than be despondent. The line has at least escaped the fate of the Ivotorua-Taupo project, and that which hangs at the moment over the big deviation for which Palmerston North has been waiting so long. The Ministerial inspection of the Palmerston North workings is being conducted to-day. That a cessation of this important task should be even contemplated seems unbelievable. 7et that was the only inference to he drawn from the Prime Minister’s recent remarks. The Palmerston North deviation is of Reform origin, and perhaps may suffer the penalty so often visited upon the schemes of a departed Government. But the application of such a penalty would be a reproach to the party now in power. The demand . for the removal of the cramped and dangerous marshalling yards from the heart of the growing town was accentuated by the tragic Carmichael scandal in 1925, and of course gains impetus every time a car or motor-truck is smashed to matchwood at one of the numerous death-traps that masquerade in the guise of railway crossings along the main streets of Palmerston North. An immense amount of work, including the establishment of workers’ suburbs, and preparations for an elaborate series of overhead bridges to eliminate the death-traps, lias been accomplished on the site of the deviation. To east all this into idleness and decay would be waste of the most culpable type.