The Daily News THURSDAY, APRIL 26. THE RAILWAY DEVIATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8094, 26 April 1906, Page 2

The Daily News THURSDAY, APRIL 26. THE RAILWAY DEVIATION.

In its issue of Wednesday evening the " Herald " falls into grievous error in attempting to correct our assertion that the railway route has not yet been decided upon. The " Herald " says "We are assured by His Worship the Mayor that our contemporary (the Daily NfIWS) is in error in stating that the railway deviation route has not yet been decided upon by the Department. Mr Cock has had private information of an autho.'itative character that the Buller street route has been definitely adopted, and certainly the Departments' attitude on the question leaves little room to doubt that this is correct."

Notwithstanding tho "private authoritative information" on which the " Herald " bases its alleged correction, our readers may accept our assertion as being an exact position of the state of affairs. We may go farther and state that so far as the Buller street route is concerned, it is entirely out of court, and will not be adopted by the Department under any circumstances. We utterly fail to see whereon the " Herald " has based its statement that " tho Department's attitudo on the question leaves little room for doubt that " the Buller street route has been definitely adopted,—route which we know has been absolutely discarded. As we stated, tho Department has not yet decided which of two alternate routes to adopt. For the " Herald's " and the public's information we may slate that the routes under consideration traverse respectively the sea front, and along tho backs of the sections midway between Buller and Molesworth streets. Under the latter route the streets of tho town would be left practically intact. The railway would cross Gover, Eliot and Hobson streets at a level much below that of the streets, and would probably be crossed by bridges. There would therefore be no dangerous levelcrossings in the town. No section frontages would be cut oft; instead, about half a chain would be taken from the backs of the sections which face Moleswoit'i and Buller streets re ipectively. As w.is stated by us yeiterday, the Department's officers are at present engaged interviewing property owners regarding valuations, with a view to ascertaining what tho total cost of this route is likely to be. When the whole of the information is available, the (wo routes will be judged on their merits, from the points of view of cost and facility of construction, Under these circumstances there is no justification for all the premature fuss that has been made in certain quarters, nor has it been possible for the Department to furnish the Borough Council with information which it was not itself possessed of, although we agree that as a matter of courtesy, the Council's communications should have been acknowledged. A public pronouncement will, no doubl, shortly be made, and it will then be found that the position, as stated by us, is the correct one, and that the "Herald's" information and deductions arc altogether at fault.