THE Wairarapa Age CORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MAY 7, 1908. COSTLY OPTIMISM.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9083, 7 May 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age CORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MAY 7, 1908. COSTLY OPTIMISM.

The beginning of the expenditure I of a sum of more than half a million pounds in Jinking up Canterbury the prosperous with Westland the depressed and depopulated was cele- ■ brated at Otira on Tuesday, when the Premier electrically fired the first blasting shot of the great tunnel work. It was an insignificant sendoff to such a significant sum of money. Probably never wa? a pre- i arranged shot so cootly as that one ' will prove to the dominion during the lifetime of the present generation. Nominally national, the undertaking of tunnelling the dividing range between the East and West Coasts of the South Island is essentially provincial. The formulation of this work is credited to the late Mr Sed don, who, being urgec' by Canterbury constituencies on the one hand, and pressed by his Westland constituency on the other, consented that the entire dominion should pay the cost ol enab-

ling the people of the two provinces to catch a glimpse of the two seas i through this hole in the wall of mountains. His successor has caused the proposal to blossom, and the fruit of the Dead Sea species—will doubtless be produced in the course of time. Canterbury will benefit by the line in getting into direct commercial touch with the Westlanders, and the Westlanders will benefit in being able to 3ave a day and a few shillings when paying a vlslt to the Cathedral City. It is 'impossible to suppose that the railway can hope to pay working expenses for many years after the completion of the railway, which will take many years to complete. It will have to rely almost entirely upo.i coa". from Grey mouth and timber from behind Holdtika, and perhaps a little from the neighbourhood of Ross; but it will probably bo found cheaper to ship littoral timber right round the coast to Lyttelton than to rail it to Christchurch. In any case the coal and timber industries, together with the good* trained from Christchurch to the Coast to supply the few thousands of inhabitants scattered over the narrow strip of populated territory comprising shingly beach and rugged mountains, will not enable the railway to pay working expenses. And thera is nothing else to rely upon; for there is no agriculture to speak of, and very little cultivable land, and there are no industries beyond those indicated. ? The best flax country is far beyond the reach of the railway. It was part of the late Mr Seddon's policy to carry on the line from Hokitika to the far South, and there to cross the'ranges and tap the Central Otago system, thus completing a circle from Christchurch .to the Coast, and on, via South Westland, to Otago, and thence to Christchurch again. This might give a fillip to the flax, timber, and cattle-raising industries in the far south of Westland's littoral, but the traffic would never pay the cost of working the railway, as a considerable portion of the line would run through country that can never, from its character, be more than sparsely settled, and is at present absolutely devoid of popu- ' lation. It is to be hoped that Sir Joseph Ward will not dream of adding to the almost criminal waste of public money involved in the East and West Coast railway by sanctioning such a wild scheme. Optimism such as Sir Joseph's is very well in its way, but when it is literally devoid of basis and involves enormous expenditure without the ghost of a shadow of adequate return, it is something to shun as a pestilence. The Premier's optimism regarding the prospects of Westland is going to prove enormously costly to the dominion as a whole. The people will hardly stand a repetition of it on the same terms.