RAILWAYS IN VICTORIA.

Tuapeka Times, Volume IV, Issue 220, 18 April 1872, Page 5

RAILWAYS IN VICTORIA.

The following extracts from the speech of Mr C. G. Duffy, at Castlemaine bear equally upon the prospects ot New Zealand as Victoria, and are worth perusal and reflection : — "We aim to make Melbourne the entrepot of trade and the metropolis of the Southern Pacific by a series of efficient mail services, and to share her advantages with the whole country by an extensive system of railways. The farmer's wheat will go to India, and the vigneron°s wive to the islands i cf the Pacific with profit, when the farmers and vignerons are o > on the line of a railway. We propose a series of mail services which, if they obtain the assent of Parliament, will enible us, without inordinate outlay, to make Melbourne the terminus of the communication with Furope, India, and America. We have entered into a contract with New Zealand, subject to the approval of Parliament for a miil service running from Melbourne to San Francisco by way of New Zealand. It will give us habitual access to the United States, and habitual access to the Pacific Islands. We want access access to the TTmtecl (States, because they can teach the industrial and s ocial arts by which a new nation rises to prosperity. .... And we want direct and regular communication with the islands of the Pacific, that we may share the trade of that new world As far as railways exist among us, they have promoted comfort, economy, and "civilisation ; and though they were enormously expensive, no one can regret that they have been made. Had they been made at the cost we now propose to incur, they would have paid splendidly, and have been a steady source of national income. And what is more, costly as the construction was, tVey would have paid thair way if the Legislative Council had simply kept their hands off them. But by an unfortunate blunder called an amendment, imported into the Construction Bill in that chamber, double lines were ordered when single lines would have sufficed, and we are paying in interest upon money wasted in this experiment, and in maintenance of a superfluous way, • 400 or LSOO a day. This is a fact which it is necessary to recall, for the whol« future of railway extension is involved in the question, Can we make railways cheaply ? If we cau, we shall open up the country rapidly ; if we cannot, the policy of adding to lines that will not pay is very hazardous. The desire of the Government is to make them as cheaply as is consistent with safety ; cheap railways and plenty of them in our policy. Our neighbours in New Zealand, who, it must be confessed, are making vigorous and practical efforts for a foremost place, have boldly projected J, 500 miies of railway on a narrow guage, to be made at the rate of 150 miles a year ; and I don't think Victoria will be alarmed at a responsibility which New Zealand can afford to undertake.