The Waikato Times. SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1877.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 747, 31 March 1877, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1877.

Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatever state or persuasion,.religious or political ### # " # Here shall the Presi the People's right maintain, Unawed by influence ancl unbribed by gain.

Although there was nothing* more m the announcement made by the f Herald ' on Monday, that the Government were about at once to survey the line of the proposed Thames and Waikato railway, than the waking up of that journal to the fact I that some weeks ago Mr. D. M. ' Beere had received instructions to | make a flying survey of the line, it ' is satisfactory to have the" subject i once more brought prominently forward. It has been a characteristic of too many of the New Zealand railways that they lead from nowhere to nowhere, and that there is little hope qf immediate reprcductiveness from them m a business point of view. This cannot be said of the Thames and Waikato railway; certainly not of this end of it. Here we have, stretching away for miles, a fine level country . being brought rapidly under English grasses, which would yield enormous crops of grain and other produce, if only the means were at hand of sending it to a market j and much the same may be said of the lands at the other end of the line. Grahamstown is depending on Auckland to a very great extent — almost entirely, indeed — for its supplies, while land within a radius of a score of miles lies idle, and is likely to do so, without the means of sending what could be produced upon it to a market And while the line would be of very large benefit m opening up some hundreds of thousands of acres of fertile land, its construction would be entirely free from engineering difficulties. Valuable '

timber, too, for railway and other purposes, is to be met with upon the line, and ballasting of the best quality can be procured from the Grahamstown and Hamilton ends m any quantity. From Kaueranga at the Grahamstown end, the line* as recorded by the Grovernment Engineer, Mr. Simpson, m his report of a survey made m 1873 runs over a succession of fern plains and swamps, passina[ through three small bushes I during the first thirty miles to the \ Thames crossing. The whole of this distance is practically level, and the swamps are easily drained where the- line- crosses them. From the Thames crossing to Hamilton is another thirty miles, all flat land, except the Gorge at Te Awa, Waikato. Here, there would be some 500 yards of cutting, but that, is all upon the entire length of sixty miles, and the swamps require no further drainage than the. ditch on either side the line. This latter half of the line runs along the higher or south side of the great 62,000 acre swamp. Little more than half the extent of line mentioned would, however, meet the requirements of the case. If the Grahamstown and Tararu line were extended a ditance of three miles to Kopu, the Thames river, itself, could be made use of to j the Thames crossing above alluded to, and a line of thirty miles from that point into Hamilton would connect Grahamstown, by steam, with Waikato, and, so with Auckland and, as the trunk line advances, ' with points further southward. The point where the surveyed line of railway crosses the Thames river, is some five miles below the rapids, near Te Aroha, The stream from that point down to Kopu is admir- > able adapted for steamers of 2% feet 1 draft. The current, is only two ' knots, and the bends of the river , are sufficiently easy. So that, indeed, a railway of thirty miles only m length, over nearly all level land, ' would afford an outlet by steam carriage, partly by land, partly by , water, to the large extent of country v traversed. But, it would do more ; than this, for, it would bring Wai--1 kato into direct communication with , Grahamstown," and give to the one district a market for its produce, > and to the other supplies which, at an enhanced expense, are imported . from outside the Province, and even Colony.