YESTERDAY AFTERNOON'S SITTING.

Waikato Times, Volume XV, Issue 1268, 14 August 1880, Page 3

YESTERDAY AFTERNOON'S SITTING.

' The House wfcumed at 2.30 p.m. ' The questions on the Order Paper were postponed at the instigation of the 'Government. The adjourned debate on the motion that the report of the Commissioners on Railways was detrimental to the best interests of the colony was resumed by J Mr Wright. Referring to the Otago central line and the/ attack made by Mr Pyke on the Commissioners in connection with their recothhiendations regarding the work, He said the Commission was disappointed in finding 1 how very little the interior of that provincial district had justified railway construction. The estimated cost of work was £1,100,000, but from what he knew of the country he apprehended £1,500,000 would be nearer the m^rk. He concluded the colony would not be justified in incurring that expenditure to open up not more than 210,000 acres of valuable land. The members of the Commission had been most unanimous in their findings, and in respect to none of their recommendations were they more so than in their reference to that work. They had condemned a line in which a late Premier had taken a strong interest, and in which the present Premier had shown a similar interest, and likewise a line in Nelson which the Chairman of the Commission himself had long labored to promote. It had been stated to the House that the cost for working the Dunedin railway Ration was £900 for three months, while that of Christchurch had been £12,000. That turned out to be a wilful perversion of the truth ; the fact being that the guards ' of the Dunedin section were included in , the Christchurch returns. They had been blamed for not recommending railway construction to certain boroughs on ! the West- Coast of the Middle Island ; but the fact was that their very plans showed them to be what he had often heard of but never before seen — rotten boroughs. The member for Rodney had made a similar complaint regarding his district. From enquiries made they ascertained that the district was so rough that they could not go over it, even although they went on their hands and knees ; then again the district was well supplied with water carriage. He mentioned that to show the character of the country they were blamed for not recommending that a railway should be made. Referring to the Wellington and Foxton line, he showed that the route by Masterton was not more than 30 miles more, and that the -Crown lands through which it would run were at least four times greater than by the other. He blamed Government for giving too much weight in the Public Works Statement to the opinions of the Engineer-in-Charge for the Middle Island, and showed that two lives in Southland, which were favorite projects of his, were inferior as regards their prospects of paying their two recommended by the Commissioners— the former having been provided for in the Public Works Statement, and not the latter. He condemned the Kawakawa line, stating that more duty for the works should have been given, the more so, as it was a work in which a distinguished member of the executive was personally interested. The new wharf at Wellington, and whan r es erected at Foxton and the Bluff he mentioned as useless pieces of extravagance, and wholly unnecessary and unjustifiable. The Commission recommended that the railways should be placed beyond politic influence and grave evidence of abuse in that re«pect if a scheme could be devised for enabling all railway employees to participate in profits beyond 4 per cent. He believed that the lines would be made to pay handsomely. The House adjourned at 5.30 p.m.