The Daily News. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1903. A NEW DEPARTURE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 247, 17 November 1903, Page 2

The Daily News. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1903. A NEW DEPARTURE.

An entirely new line in railway construction has been adopted by the Government this session. Now that the FublicWorks Estimates are .seriously diminished, whilo tho pressure for new works and especially new railroads has largely increased, a new method 01" developing our railway system has been adopted, and has attracted singularly little notice, or criticism throughout the colony. Tho older colonists among us will remember when district railways built from private resources were very much in vogue indeed, 'out after a few years the private ownership of these railways was found to lead to very undesirable consequences, and their existence was terminated by the Government buying up all the priately owned district railways in the colony. The Government of the day announced that under no circumstances would it sanction the construe, tion of another line built by private capital and owned by private persons. With, as we have said, the contraction of the Public Works Estimates, a new line o< policy has been adopted, and the Government has accepted the offer of the Waihi Company to provide the requisite funds at o per cent, to build the line from Paeroa to Waihi. It would be dilficult to find a more desirable line than this, which will in tho long run prove to have been the first step in connecting Hawke's Bay and Auckland. There seems no reason why the principle should not be extended, and it was at once suggested that the Kaikorai Valley line, nearlmnedin, for which the people interested offered to find the money at ■!.- per cent, At par, should be proceeded with by Government on the same ! why many short lines in the colony : principle. We fail to see ahy reason for which interested jpbople were ready to find the Whole of the money, should hot be undertaken ere long by the Government. To- ilo so would relieve the Public Works Estimates to 110 small extent, and free the loan money borrowed in London for necessary public works which do not interest the people of one district to the extent of inducing them to find the money. Sir William Russell, it is true, remarked that this was a new 'departure in railway construction in the colony, and said "there was the possiblo contingency of the line not paying, and tlio colony would in that case be saddled with the expenditure of £.130,000 in connection with a line which was mainly in the interests of a private gold mining company." It is quite true that the Paeroa line will directly and largely benefit the Waihi Gold Mining Company, so largely indeed, that, as we have said, that company is prepared to lend the Government tho whole of the money required on one condition, that the line is finished in two years. It is to be hoped that this condition will be firmly insisted on under heavy penalties for delay, since in answer to a question Mr Hall-Jones said that the Government proposed to employ co-operative labour in the construction of this line, and past experience has shown us that work done by cooperative labour generally dwadles on ad infinitum. So far back as 1895 certain individuals who saw the capabilities of this lino offered to find all the money in London, and finish the work, if the Government would sanction such a proceHiivg ; 1"( it this offei; was promptly and properly declined. Under the present offer, the Government will construct, manage, and control the line. Altogether it will be like the rest of the lines of the colony (excepting the Manawatu line), absolutely the property of tho people of New Zealand, the. only difference being that the funds for constructing are borrowed locally instead of from the London lender.