RAILWAYS IN NEW ZEALAND.

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 79, 18 September 1878, Page 3

RAILWAYS IN NEW ZEALAND.

The following portions of a speech made by Mr Blair, the railway engineer, ■at the Dunedin banquet are very readable. In replying to the toast .pro-

posed by Judge Bathgate, “ Success to railway enterprise in New Zealand,” Mr Blair said : Mr Mayor, you: 1 Excellency, and gentlemen— 1 feel very much gratified at having my name associated with the toast of the evening, and the complimentary terms in which I have been referred to by the Judge, and the hearty way in which my health has been drunk.— (Cheers) I have responded to the toast of “The Engineers” on several occasions, but never under such trying circumstances. In the first place, the claim has been workel out long ago. All that lean say of them has been said already, so that the utmost that can be expected of me is a new version of an old song.—(A Voice : Give us the song.) Then I am at present in somewhat of a transition state. All our former railway openings were essentially of Otago, and when I was at a loss for a subject I could descant on the amenities of her fair clime; but I can do so no longer, for my ideas are becoming cosmopolitan. lam off with the old love, although scarcely on with the new. These considerations, and the importance of the occasion, make me wish that the task of replying to the toast had|fallen .into abler hands.—(No, and cheers.) The importance of the occasion is not measured by the simple fact that the iron horse is now free to run his course between Dunedin and Christchurch, and that the journey was yesterday accomplished in ten hours instead of the three or four -weary days it used to take a short time since. It is an earnest of our determination and ability to prosecute the glorious work of colonisation to O # a successful issue—it is a volume in the history of a nation. I hold that it is as high an honour to contribute a page in this history as it was to figure in the records of the Old World. The warriors of the past notched out their country’s civilisation on the brows of their enemies with the sword. We rule it on the face of nature with a thin black line, more powerful than the famous “red line” that rolled back the tide of Russian aggression—(Cheers.) I think the modern method of building history is an improvement on the ancient one. The Dunedin and Christchurch railway is not only useful in promoting our material prosperity, but it is a powerful agent in our social advandement. It facilitates interchange of ideas as well as merchandise, and smoothes out local prejudices and jealousies. We shall no longer be of Canterbury nor of Of ago, but the lion and the lamb shall lie down together, and the locomotive shall lead them to a community of thought and interests.— (Laughter and cheers.) I must take this opportunity of referring to the inconsistency of my fellow colonists in railway matters. We start fair enough —the policy made and provided is that all shall participate in the benefit of railway communication. With this view the butter is spread thin over the broad, but no sooner is ..the first bite tasted than a cry is raised for jam over the butter. So far as the engineers are concerned, they would like to give both the butter and jam at once. There is more glory and honour in building one huge bridge or driving one great tunnel than making five hundred miles of cheap railways; but which of these benefits the country most? There is not a- man, woman, or child between Nelson and the Bluff who has not benefited by the constrution of the 800 miles of railway now open iu the Middle Island. — (Cheers.) How many would have been benefited had the expenditure been confined between the Taieri and the Waitaki, which is all the railways we would have had for our money had the old system been adopted? The introduction of expensively constructed and equipped railways into one part of the Colony to the exclusion of railways of any kind from other parts is not only unjust, but absurd; for the cheapest of our lines will carry our traffic for many years to come. All the expensive lines would do more is to carry the Dunedin merchant with the speed of an eagle on to his prey when he hears of a good grain spec at Temuka. Or, to save the Ashburton farmer the expense of pulling down his barns and building greater when his love ®f saving increases with his crops.—(Cheers.) The railway from Dunedin to Oamaru, which we travelled over yesterday, is capable of carrying 1000 tons per clay each way between these places. Just reduce to this to horse-power, and we have a waggon on every hundred yards of the road. What a road it would he to make and maintain, and what a fearful amount of bad whiskey ,and bad language would be indulged : in by the waggoners. Why, the railway is worth the money it has cost on moral grounds alone.—(Laugh-

ter and applause I have to thank you for the hearty manner in which this toast has. been received, and although the task is getting somewhat monotonous I shall be most happy to reply to it again and again at short intervals for the next twenty years.— (Cheers.) If the progress of the Colony during the past ten years is a criterion of what maybe expected in the next twenty, each chapter in our history will become a chapter in the history of the world.—( Cheers).