RAILWAY WANTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 September 1920, Page 5

RAILWAY WANTS.

TWO ISLANDS COMPARED. DEVELOPMENT OF AUCKLAND. By Telegraph.—rress Association. Wellington, Last Nijyit. A deputation representing the Auckland and Poverty Bay districts waited on Mr. Massey and Mr. Coates and urged the claims of the North Island to a fair share of public works expenditure. Mr Cheal (Auckland) said there was a growing need for the North Island to assert itself, and its claims should be put before those of the South Island. Nine million acres of ]and awaited settlement in the North Island against about three and a half million in the South Island. The necessity of developing the North Auckland and the East Coast railways was stressed by speakers. Mr. Massey, replying, said he agreed with the opinion of some of the speakers that it would be unwise to set one part of the country against another. Auckland was undoubtedly the most progressive province, and'while it was true that a great deal of Government money had been spent in the district during the last .fifteen or twenty years, he felt the cuuntry as. a whole was reaping the benefit. Auckland was the last of the provinces to commence development, and therefore it had been necessary, whatever Government was in power, to expend a great deal of money there in recent years! Mr. Massey said the North Island was rapidly overtaking the South Island in the matter of railway construction, and he thought the time was not far distant when it would have equal, or possibly greater, mileage. He defended the expenditure on the Otira Tunnel as beiiig necessary to make the lines on the other side reproductive, and ventured the opinion that there would be returned a higher rate of interest than many people imagined. The Eaft Coast railway was a line the Government was anxious to complete, and the Whangarei line was one of those which must be completed. The whole country, however, would have justice done it by the Government.