THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 1913. THE SOUTHERN RAILWAYS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 28 August 1913, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 1913. THE SOUTHERN RAILWAYS.

It is dangerous to discuss the question of southern railways in oold print lest one be charged with a desire to create parochial disaffection. But, ias the Auckland Star points out, every now and-then those of ns who maintain that the North Island has been and is still being sacrificed to the South in the distribution of the Public Works Fund, find ourselves unexpectedly supported by testimony from a quarter which not even Dunedin or Christchurch oan describe as prejudiced ; and we have just enjoyed this satisfaction to quite an unusual extent in reading &i letter headed "The Otago Central Line—lts Perils," which appeared a few days ago in the Otago Daily Times. The writer does not mince matters in dealing with this extraordinary enterprise. He ia describing more particularly the section of the line which runs for eleven miles through a narrow gorge between Pukerangi and Hindon. "There is no need," he tells us, "to enlarge on the historical aspect of the undertake ing or to enter into a discussion of the motives that actuated the men who had to do with its inception. That it was conceived in folly there is not the shadow of doubt. To think of constructing a line through a desolate waste of howling crag and rocky precipice in order to tap the illimitable (resources of a, naiTow, limited patch of country of doubtful and varying productiveness was surely the madcap idea of a group of motleyminded bipeds in a moment of mental aberration." We are glad that the responsibility for these enthusiastic dommenta is laid upon a Southerner who lives in the district and assures us that he voices the sentiments of the bulk of the population of Central Otago. The stupendous engineering feat of constructing such a line amid extraordinary physical difficulties, coupled with the dangers that might evolve from time to time through Na-

ture'a instability and the foroes of denudation operating amid such perilous conditions, Should, wo deem, have made the projectors of the scheme hesitate and ponder well before embarking on so bold -an enterprise. But political influence was too much for common sense or the weight of expert advice, and the work wag done. Commercially speaking, says this candid critic, everybody knows that "the thing was nothing more nor lees than a tremendous blunder." But it might easily be something worse; for the recent heavy rainfall brought down no less than 16 large landslips in this gorge, and if the train had been passing at the time nothing could have saved it from destruction. "There is a deep-rooted oonviction among the people of Central Otago," says the writer, "that one day an appalling catastrophe will take place in the Gorge." No doubt; and the people of Central Otago will do well to insist upon the Railway Department taking due precautions in time. But what was the cost of this enormously expensive and shockingly dangerous piece of line? -And what is the value of the plea so often urged in the past by the people of Otago, that the Otago Central waa needed to open up vast areas of productive land? How match of Central Otago answers to the description of _ the patch of country so vividly depicted by the "candid friend" of the Otago Daily Times? After all, it is some consolation for all that the North Island has endured at the hands of the South to find our strongest convictions on such a topio as the Otago Central so amply corroborated by unimpeachable testimony.