LEGALITY OF RAIL WORK

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 813, 6 November 1929, Page 6

LEGALITY OF RAIL WORK

DOUBTS CAST ON SOUTH ISLAND LINE UNAUTHORISED EXPENDITURE? THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Tues. Doubts on the legality of work on the South Island Main Trunk line, pince it had not been authorised, were cast by Mr. C. A. Wilkinson, Independent member for Egmont, in the House of Representatives this evening, during the course of a debate on the second reeding of the Railways Authorisation Bill. Mr. Wilkinson has consistently opposed the line and described the Bouth Island this evening as the ••graveyard of the railway system.” Mention had been made by Mr. D. Sullivan (Avon), said Mr. Wilkinson, that people had been seriously misled by the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates on the South Island Main Trunk proposal. It appeared to him that people were being misled at the present and lie wished to ask the Hon. G. W. Forbes if his statement about the passing of the Coates amendment, asking for an investigation of the lines, would stop work on all the lines in New Zealand, if it were correct. Men now were working on lines without authority. If they could work on lines now without authorisations, surely they could do so in the future. He said there had been no recommendation in the Fay-Raven report on the subject of the line alone, but merely in conjunction with the train Jerry. There was no mention of the • ost of construction. The only real report on the line was the Fay-Casey one. and that had condemned it lock, Stock and barrel. It was the business of the Government to make a searching investigation before large expenditure on the railways was embarked upon. He would have the greatest pleasure in voting for the amendment. He was r>t opinion that the South Island was the graveyard of the railway system yet. in construction of the South Island Main Trunk line there would he a greater loss than on the Palmerston deviation line from Rotorua to Taupo. It was wrong constitutionsilly to spend on the line, money that Jiad not been specifically authorised hy Parliament, and he would shed his responsibility for it when he cast his ;vot.e. The general position of railways was unsatisfactory, the annual loss w as increased, as foreshadowed by the Budget of the Government, which was proposing to expend still more money on railways. Surely it was reason-, able that, a full inquiry should be made het'ore the South Island Main Trunk Jine was completed, he said.