THE RIMUTAKA DEVIATION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10153, 25 November 1910, Page 4

THE RIMUTAKA DEVIATION.

The expected has happened. The Prime Minister has "turned down" the member for Masterton, who asked if "the Government wouiu deviate the Rimutaka railway if the settlers guaranteed them against loss. Sir Joseph Ward said the deviation would be an expensive undertaking, and, in view of the large demands for main lines, it would not be expedient to put it in hand in the immediate future. He further said that this district is already served by the Rimutaka railway. A more impotent reply could not have been given to a. straight-out question, The present Parliament Buildings serve the legislators of the country. But this does not prevent the placing of a sum of money upon the Estimates for a new building. The Hutt railway served all the requirements of the district. But this did not prevent half a million of money being spent in straightening it. The Rimutaka railway is a tax upon the whole of the Dominion, as well as an incubus to the district. What main lines and other works have to do with it, is difficult to say. If the work is required—and the Government itself must admit that it is—and a guarantee against loss is given by the settlers, what else is necessary? The Prime Minister should have been candid, and said that either lie was going to penalise the : district, and, through it, the Dominion as a whole, or that his sole trouble was in finding the money.