SECOND EDITION Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1878.] TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1894. PUBLIC WORKS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4899, 11 December 1894, Page 2

SECOND EDITION Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1878.] TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1894. PUBLIC WORKS.

Tim Premier recently assured the unemployed down South that tho time was coming when no money would be available for public works. He then went up north and there he gave tho following outline of his 1 policy with regard to them, He thought the Mokau section of the Trunk line should be completed to the road leading, to Waitara. Then j he thought the line ought to be completed to Hautapu; that would tap a large tract of country. The North Island Main Truuk Railway would get the money intended for it, He first referred to the completion of the Wellington section of the line, then there was the EketahmiaWoodville section, which should be completed as soon as funds allowed, after that they would have to purchase the Manawatu railway. : It was necessary +o completo the Midland Railway from Springfield to Jackson's. It was a railway for tourist traflio, and as national a work as tho Rotorua Railway, Unless they did this they stood in their own light, Then thero was the Otago Central Railway; that should be completed to the point recommended by the Committee. He might before long have the pleasure in the South Island of opening that most nieccssary railway the Seaward Bush line, which should be completed, It is evident that Mr Seddon's programme is a fairly big one, and'on the whole it is one that should be carried out, But it is indispensable to its success that the present method of constructing public works should be abandoned, In tho future some millions of money must be expendod on public works, and the money will have to be borrowed, If it ; be borrowed for works of a reproductive character,' aiid the money be judiciously expended, it will be a benefit to the colony, On the other hand, if a million of money is spent to construct six orseven hundred thousand pounds worth of railways, tho colony will be better off without them, We beliqve that under the co-operative system tho colony pays at least a third more than under the. contract system. We cannot get at the real truthiin this matter, because the Public Works Department is practically gagged.'•'Engineers and managers of works understand that they have to make the, construction of them popular witli ; the co-operative workers or incur tho displetistu-eof the Premier. The recent' removal jof a manager from the AVoodville section.,...was ,a case,in point, Wo believe in a spirited public works policy for necessary and reproductive works', and-tho sooner the present hugger-muggor method: iof borrowing is 0. abandoned i for ,> a straight-forward 1 'loan:, the ' ; better,';

provided that the Colony lias some assurauce that the money will not be squandered in buyiug the support of tho working man. Tlio best nianagors of public works are contractors./ But. a short while ago we had a number of trained experts of this kind who were simply invaluable to the Colony, A clever contractor with a head on his shoulders by the exercise of his brains and by tlio advantage of lub experience can in a given piece of work save the Colony thousands of pounds. Tlio able and capable men have been set on one'side, and in place of them we have all theincapables in the Colony, Ability has been eliminated from our Public "Works' Department, and it is simply emasculated;