"SIDETRACKED."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 76, 19 March 1908, Page 4

"SIDETRACKED."

(To the Editor.) Sir,—May 1 be allowed to enter .1 protest against some of the slatemen'.* contained in your sub-leader of Satur-

day under the heading "Tara'naki's Hailwav Kequirementa.' 1 With regard

lo the alleged discourtesy on Mr. Okey's part I have little or nothing to do, l>ut 1 should imagine tliat .Mr. Okey, as representing the premier town in Taranaki, which is depending for its future welfare and expansion 011 the development of the back country, is well within his rights in leaving 110 stone unturned to further the interests of the town and district which he has ihe honour to re-

i. present. Moreover, if you turn up llan- [. sard you will find that when the Esiilt mates were under discussion in the i House it was Mr. Okey, with M,\ it Jla-sey, who ra'ised his voice in favour [« of the whole of the railways then tinder n construction in the Taranaki province it being pushed forward with all possib'e [,. despatch, and every penny voted for „. them lieing expended before the end of K . the financial year. And I can assure n you of one thing, that we in this district 10 are both grateful to and proud of Mr. [,. Okey for his efforts on our behalf. But ~. this is by the way. The statements L . contained in your sub-leader that Idt ,f sire to take exception to chiefly ar? those with regard to the Stratfoidn ' Origaruhe and the Mount Fginont line*. Take the Stratford-Ougaruhe line first. ~ 'To judge from the tone of your remarks I. any person who did not know the real „ facts of the case would imagine that a ~ most glorious work was being aeconie piished in this district and the develop,e merit of the back country proceeding j with all possible despatch. Now, it is r> all very well for you to write about it ~. being " intended to prosecute, the extension of the line as soon as the Main ~ Trunk is finished," and about the lluie roa section being shortly to be open for t passenger traffic, and to state that "the proposed deputation, if it does no more, j will realise how great an undertaking y is the construction of this work, the lik 0 of which cannot be estimated by those j, whose journeyings never take them off .. the main line." What fiddlesticks! . Can you point to one single engineering . difficulty in connection with the line ,' J from Stratford to its present terminus» t There is a cutting at the Huiroa end , of some dimensions, it is true, but wi-.li up-to-date machinery and appb'ances, ; which should lie (but unfortunately are ; not) in use on all the public works of . the Dominion, this should have been , merely a work of weeks instead of t months. Why did you not put the true facts of the case before your readers? Wliy not have told them that in a fortnight's time it will be seven years siuee the first sod of this line was turned, and that in spite of the absence of any engineering or other difficulties it has progressed at the rate of less than

three miles per year? Why not hav pointed out, also that tliis small slretc] of line kiln through sheer mismanage incut, post to date within a few pound of 1100,000? Do you call this business Do you call it progress? And. if this is to lie tiie rate of progress in fm years what will lie the rate iu those that are lean? And with regard to the Mount Egmont Hue your statements ai\ utterly misleading, if not actually at variance with the truth. You state that crushing has been in progress for some time. This is ridiculous nonsense,

and your informant, whoever hv wa-. ought to have known it. The true filets of the- cisc reveal a ghastly stale of affairs, a. disgrace lu miy Uovernnicnt iu tin' civilised world. They would at tinii's wear the aspect of a comic open were it not for the fact that we are paying the English moneylender isoine- | thing like £0 a day to' witness the farec. What arc the incontrovertible facts of the case? I will tell you, aud challenge them if you can. In response torcpeated requests from the Waitotara and Stratford County Councils, the Stratford Borough Council and other local bodies along the line, the Government decided to tap the inexhaustible stone deposits of Mount Egmont, by means of a line branching off the main line at Waipuku. Careful exploration revealed the existence of a gigantio quarry some nine miles from the main line, and the lirst sod of the now line was tinned on .lamiarv itjth, 1005. An excellent crusher site was found near the half-way peg, and it was decided to work the crushers by means of water

brought in a flume some 54 chains long from the Mauganui stream. Now, what would ordinary business men have done' Would they not have rushed the line through witli all possible despatch to the ipiarries. m, that its purpose might be fulfilled and the strain on the fin >es I of the local bodies crying out for cheap : metal be relieved without further delay? Most assuredly they would; but, unfortunately for the local bodies, this is exactly what the ftovprnment did not do. Instead, they proceeded to first of pit lay down 4'/ L . miles of line, and then to

erect five commodious collates tit tlit Wuipnkii end. .Vest they" proceeded with the installation of tlit- r-rii.s]ii>i*> pliml anil accessories, ami at the same time carried the line on for a further two miles to a point where it is destine,] fit some future time to cross (he Itfiuu/'imii stream. Here thev cried "Taihoa" f..r » while. Tli,.-,,- „vNt action was to side-track this line (and. incidentally, the taxpayers of the Dominion and thoae local lxidies who were awaiting their first instalment of cheap metal as well) to a ballast pit some 20 ehains or ho away by the side of the Mangiinui. And this is the terminus of the line at. the ori's«nt time in the year of grace 1908,

three, years and two mouths since the line was started! The remaining three miles to the quarries are not even cleared—still standing bush every foot of the way. Now, sir, one pertinent ques. tiou. Do you think Parlament voted the sum of £54,157 15s Hit (the approximate cost of the line to date) to put a line C'/ 3 miles long into a gravel pit, or to obtain stone from the bed of a stream not one chain wide? Do you uot think that if grave! or boulders only had been required these could have been obtained from « thousand and one places not 0 chains fiom the main line instead of u'/i mills away? You state that the. stone-crushing cannot be "urged" any further, and ''anxiety for the line need not further disturb'the minds of our public men." This being the case, can you inform the public when the local bodies interested may expect to see the purpose for which 'the line was laid down fulfilled! Will they lie able to obtain a single truck-load of cheap metal within the next two years? 1 doubt it. Yon mentioned that crushing is an accomplished fact, as if the quarries had been tapped and the whole of the works in full working order, when as a matter q! fact nothing is further from the i truth. What has actually been done in ' the way of crushing is' this. When I forming the line a certain amount of stone was met with. This was spauled | and carefully Hacked by the side of the

line; a few days' .'crushing at most. This stone, together with an odd Ixmlder or two that have been found amongst the gravel, is all that has been or could possibly have, been crushed. The posi-) tion, therefore, in a nutshell is this.. Until the line is pushed on to its linal

destination—the quarries—local bodies arc as far oil getting cheap road-metal as they were before ever the line was started. No man in his sober senses can assert for a moment tliat the limited quantity of boulders in the tiny stream adjoining the gravel pit is going to meet the requirements of local bodies in this district, to say nothing of those outside, even if this stone could bo hauled out of the river bed and crushed at a cheap rate—which is, of course, too absurd even to suggest. If the gravel pit is to be the destination of the line for some years to come, if, as you assert, it is " finished as far as it is intended to be utilised at present," then what is the use of the two crushers and the costly crushing plant now going to waste? What need is there of the five cottages at the Waipuku terminus that have been elected close on two years, aad of which four have stood empty ever since with the paper rotting off the walls? And yet, in spite of this] lamentable state of affairs, when have wc heard ilr. Jennings, who turned the lirst soil of the line, or Air. Symes, who looked on as he did so, utter one word of prolest- against such a scandalous >itate of things? And then when one umn has the courage to move in the matter j'ou talk about Parliamentary etiquette and discourtesy. One last word. You in New Plymouth just now are, and rightly so. moving in the direction of obtaining power to make . certain improvements to your harbour. Of what use will all the improvements in the world be to you "if you have not the trade to support them? And whore are you going to get the trade if the development of your back country, our hack country, is'carried out in the next ten years as it has been carried out in the past? As I have already remarked, Mr. Editor, New 'Plymouth's future expansion depends entirely upon the development of the back country of this

province. This is what \vc in tJio Stratford district ure fighting for to-day, and, if y<m will pardon me for saying'so, I think- it would liuvf been hotter judgment on your part if you had. sought to assist us in our etforts and to uphold those who are equally anxious to bring* about a better state of affairs. Finally, with regard to tile member for Tarlinaki, I, as one who has sunk everything he possessed in this district, appreciate to the full his efforts on behalf of u« all, and I would to God for the sake of this fair land of ours that there were more men of the stamp of Henry Okey in the House.-—Yours &c, J. SMITH. Strathmore, 10/3/08. [We refer to the above in our leading' ' columns.—Ed. T.IJ.N.J