NEW ZEALAND RAILWAYS.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 273, 23 August 1872, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND RAILWAYS.

We take the following from the Australasian of the 13th Juty : “ Whatever may he thought of the financial policy of the present administration of New Zealand, and of tho propriety or impropriety of burdening so small and sparse a population with so heavy a debt, there can be little dispute as to the prudential character of tho contemplated railway expenditure. The general scheme embraces a trunk line from Auckland, in (he north, to Invercargill, in the south, broken only by the gap in the communication occasioned by the interposition of Cook Straits. At this point, the distance between the terminus of the northern and the commencement of the southern will be about 25 miles, or two hours’ run by a good steamer. When, therefore, this project shall have been completed, tho two islands will be bisected by a railway, running like a spinal cord from tho isthmus upon which stands the northern capital down to Foveaux Straits. Tliesg points are distant from each other, as the crow flies, about 750 miles, but as the configuration of (he islands will necessitate tho adoption of a curvilinear course, somewhat resembling that of the letter S re veresed, wo presume the lines will be little less than a thousand miles in length. The report of the Engineer, Mr J. Millar, F.8.A., who has made the surveys and prepared the plans of one important section of the trunk line which will run through the Middle Island, is now before us, and from it we may gather a good general idea of the leading principles which will govern the construction of tho railway as also of its probable cost. The former arc defined to be these :—l. Touch as near the centres of population as possible. 2. To keep as far inland as the physical features of the country through which the line will pass will permit ; and, 3. In opening up districts of country, to give the preference to those most likely to benefit the colony by immediately contributing to traffic receipts, so that the the line might prove reproductive from the, first, by securing the carriage of mineral and agricultural produce. The section surveyed by Mr Millar is forty miles in length, and passes through 1 by far the most difficult line of country surveyed for railway purposes in the Middle Island ; the route lying along a range of territory crossed by a mountain range, and intersected by numerous rivers ; while a formidable ravine has to be spanned by a viaduct bridge one hundred and ten feet above the level of a mountain torrent. Nevertheless, the total cost, including fencing, station buildings and rolling stock, will not average more than £4,249 per mile Beyond the boundary line of the province of Otago, where the railway will run through almost as level country as that which stretches from Sandhurst to Ecliuca, or from Moama to Delinquin, the outlay will not exceed, it is. estimated, £3,000 per mile. The guage it is proposed to adopt will be either three feet or three feet nix inches ; and as it is intended to make uso of the double bogie locomotive and bogie carriages, the engineer has been enabled to accomodate the curvatures of hie line to the sinuosities of the country,so that in some instances, his plans show the former to have a radius of two thousand links only. By fixing £5,000 per mile as the maximum of its expenditure on what inaj r be termed the national

trunk railways, the General Assembly of Now Zealand has exhibited a praiseworthy determination to profit from the example of the United States on the one hand, and to avoid the extravagant outlay into which we plunged when we constructed our main lines on the other. Nor is there any reasons to believe that Mr Millar’s estimates are untrustworthy. On the contrary, his calculations are confirmed by the actual cost of a narrow-guage railway. some 50 miles in length, which the Provincial Government of Otago is executing for the purpose of bringing the capital of that province into connection v/itli the southern goldfields. This line is completed in part, and the contract for the whole has been entered into at rates which justify us in saying that the average cost will not exceed £SOOO per mile. In some portions of the railway the expenditure will be no more than £3OOO per mile, and this is about equivalent to the constriction and maintenance of a main metalled road. If the New Zealand railways do not pay, then, it will not be on account of the costliness of their construction, but owing to the paucity of the population which will feed them with truflic. A quaiter of a milium of people to a thousand miles of railroad will remind many of the persons of the proportion which Falstaff’s bread bore to his sack. But a* William Pitt, when taunted with his youth, retorted upon his censor that this was a fault which every day would tend to lessen, so the Government of New Zealand will no doubt rejoin, when twitted with the disproportion above referred to, that it will diminish year by year ; and that, if it is burdening posterity with a heavy load of debt, it is also preparing to bequeath to it a property which must, in course of time, far exceed in value the loan now being raised for its creation. And, as a general principle, it can scarcely be doubted that it is much wiser to follow the course which the New Zealand Government is now pursuing than to imitate the action of the United States in

endowing certain great companies with enormous tracts of land, and thus building an imperium in imperio within the republic, which may ultimately overawe and control Congress, and destroy the political institutions of the country. Besides which, such companies as the Pacific and Central Lnion must become immensely wealthy by the mere growth of population along the lines of railway, and by no effort of their own. just as the greatland owners of England Jiud their opulence augmented by a chain of similar circumstances. Now, under like favorable conditions in New Zealand, the community or state will reap the benefit of the increasing traffic on the trunk lines of railway brought about by the natural or artificial increment of population ; and the time may arrive when a treasurer will find himself in the agreeable position of announcing to an applauding Assembly that he is enabled to porpose a material reductiou in the fiscal burdens of the people in consequence of the increasing revenue yielded to the exchequer by the national railways.”