THE TRUNK RAILWAY ROUTE.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 247, 17 March 1888, Page 4

THE TRUNK RAILWAY ROUTE.

Wi:llingt<hV, March 12. The " Post returns to the subject of the rival routes, and replies to the Staii'k last article. It says: **Tho evidence taken before a committee of the House in 1884 was quite sufficient to show the chaiacter of the land opened up by rival routes. The evidence ot Mr Mitchelson was e&pecially striking and conclusive, and we did not expect that Dr. Newman and Mr Bruce would strengthen, although they might confirm it. We hope our contempoiary misrepresents Mr Mitchelson in saying thai he now has changed the opinion he was obliged unwillingly to arrive ut after his personal examination of .the two lines. His information is no better than it was then, and if he has changed his views it must be as a result of political and local pressure, and not on new evidence as to the merits. What the 'weightier reasons' alluded to as having been discovered since 1884 are we do not know, and the Star does not condescend to explain them. The Staii proves all we have said when it claims that the question of route is to be decided by the wishes ot a majority of persons selhshly interested, and not on the respective merits of the two lines from a colonial point of view. We altogether demur to its reasoning that the railway should be taken through already settled district?, rather than through country fitted for settlement, if means of communication are afforded. The statement that settlement exists along nearly the whole extent of the Stratford route is absolutely incorrect, not to use a harsher term. The question, if leopened, should, we contend, be settled as it was settled before, on the ground of which line it will be to the best interest of the colony as a whole (looking not only to the present but also to the future) to construct. We are content that it should be tettled on that ground alone."