RAILWAY AGITATION.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 962, 7 August 1903, Page 3

RAILWAY AGITATION.

The Bay of Plenty Times is endeavoring to stir up the people of Tauranga to take part in the railway agitation which is now prevalent in this electorate. •“ We can make up our minds,” says our contemporary, “ that the Government of this colony, neither the present nor any immediately prospective one, is going to assume the role of the fairy godmother and go round by stealth, looking for good little boys who never worry, those in authority over them and never ask for anything, to shower on their hydrocephalous cramums all sorts of blessings and good things. Starting from this basic truth, we are driven to the conclusion that the sooner we ask for much, the sooner we get a little

—and that little will be the thin end oi the wedge which will make further progress easier. We have laid down so often the common-sense view of the railroading oi this part of the colony that we need not perhaps repeat it now, but we may well emphasise again, that where there arc two ends of a line advancing towards each other slowly as from Gisborne and Paeroa, there is ample justification for commencing any intermediate section of the line where it can be demonstrated that local traffic will be sufficient to be remunerative, as we are told would be the case between Tauranga and Te Puke Several months ago we elaborated this point, and 'are now more than ever of opinion that were a line between these two places in operation to-morrow, tlic traffic would return sufficient for working expenses, interest, and sinking fund, which the railways of New, Zealand as a whole are not doing.