Tuapeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 1872. "MEASURES, NOT MEN."

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 239, 29 August 1872, Page 4

Tuapeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 1872. "MEASURES, NOT MEN."

It is a serious misfortune to the world that Providence permitted Millar, F.S.A , to become an engineer. Had he followed the bent of his genius, he would have been one of the most successful imaginative writers of the century. In everything he does, his abilities in this direction stand out in bold relief. Whether reporting on a street crossing or a railway, he scorns slavish adherence to facts and details, breaks away from the beaten paths whereon his professional brethren are content to travel, and plunges boldly into the trackless regions of faney — the result being reports, unique for sensational brilliancy of diction, unsurpassed for originality of conception, and unequalled for noble contempt of dry reality. In his report on the Waipahee-Moa Flat railway Mr. Millar far transcends . any of his previous efforts. Compared with that racy composition the prospectus of the world-famed Glen Mutchkin railway is tame and prosaic We venture to asset that had not Mr. Millar stated distinctly that the report was on the Waipa-hee-Moa Flat railway, the promoters of that line would have foiled to

discover the fact We have "been . informed that the project of trying to get this line constructed was originated as a joke. In common fairness, Mr. Miller must be credited with having carried out the joke in a manner far exceeding the most sanguine expectations of those who started it. To review the report is impossible. It is a jumble of innacuracies, mixed with wild speculations, and the whole well flavored with bunkum. How the trade of the Lake Wakatip district is to be commandded by a railway from Waipahee to Ettrick is a problem that no one but Millar, F.S.A. would attempt to solve without incurring serious risk of being locked up. The statement regarding the thirty towns is to those acquainted with the country only provocative of laughter. Admitting the correctness of the report it is the strongest testimony yet brought forward in favor of the vline from Tuapeka to Tokomairiro. ' It has been admitted that that line will pay, if constructed only to Lawrence. If extended up the valley of the Molyneux, as it should . be, it will undoubtedly command the extensive trade and splendid agricultural country Mr. Miller is so enthusiastic about. This traffic, j added to that of the Tuapeka dis- j trict, cannot fail to make such a line highly remunerative, and it would possess the advantage of connecting all the principal goldfields. As has previously been stated the distance between Dunedin and Ettrick, via Waipahee is . thirty miles longer than by way of Tuapeka — a very serious consideration. The people of Roxburgh, who ought to be good judges of the route that would be most advantageous, have largely signed the petition to have the main interior line constructed by way of Lawrence. A gentleman writing from the Teviot says "all the people here are enthusiastically in favor of the Tuapeka line — the only parties advocating the Waipahee line are one or two squatters and their flunkeys." It is of course highly desirable that all parts of the colony should be placed within easy reach of railway communication with the seaboard, and when the main arterial lines are constructed, a branch to Tapanui will, in all likelihood b© found desirable.