THE RAILROAD.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 6, 9 February 1867, Page 3

THE RAILROAD.

An Act was passed the last session to enable the Superintendent of Wellington to treat with parties disposed to undertake the construction of a railroad from Wellington to the Wairarapa. It was necessarily useless, for no provision had been made for a preliminary proceeding, placing on the estimates a sufficient amount with which to make a perfect survey, so that parties inclined to perform the work mig;ht without cost go over the ground with facility and estimate almost to a nicety the exact cost of the undertaking. At present there is no line Tor such purpose and it is not probable that parties inclined to offer to contract would incur a large outlay, probably of one thousand pounds or more without any certainty that a tender for the work would be accepted, or that even the cost of cutting lines would not be refunded. The Act has remained a dead letter and must continue so until it obtain life through the aid of a sufficient preliminary survev, for which the estimates must provide. So soon after the next meeting of the Council as possible our members if they desire to consult the interests of the Wairarapa people will give notice of motion for an item of say £2OOO for the purpose and urge its immediate expenditure, for after March the season will be as good as any other for the survey of the Tauherenikau valley. And another reason for an immediate application is to anticipate the estimates being sent to the Council with every shilling appropriated and mostly for the benefit of Wellington and Wanganui, when having to cause some of the appropriations to be diminished, if not altogether expunged, with a view to some small instalment of justice to Wairarapa would become the obnoxious duty of our representatives, a duty which would be uncalled for if the course we propose be pursued. This cost of survey and even making a f ood cart road we have no doubt would e repaid by the sale of land on both sides of the line, which being on the sides of a good road should be sold by auction, as all such lands should ever be, in justice to buyers at fixed prices, far away in the hills and other impracticable places. But if such lands did not yield a shilling the expenditure would be but a verv small preliminary dividend upon the large —immense sum we may state, owing by the Wellington Government to the Valley of the Wairarapa.