The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published Every Tuesday, Thursday, AND Saturday Morning. Tuesday, April 15, 1890. SET OFF JOBS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 441, 15 April 1890, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published Every Tuesday, Thursday, AND Saturday Morning.

Tuesday, April 15, 1890. SET OFF JOBS.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou alm'st at be thy country’s, Thy God’s, and truth’s.

Unhappily for those who desire to plunge the colony into a further excess of borrowing there has just come to light an example of the jobbery that is worked at the expense of other portions of the colony. As the price of its support to the Midland Railway Nelson demanded that it should at some time be connected with the line, and that as a preliminary fulfilment £f>o,ooo shall be expended in extending the Government line from Belmont towards the point of ultimate junction with the main line. This demand was conceded, and for some time past there has been grumbling that the company has not yet begun to scatter the cash in Nelson. This has brought forth a letter from Mr Wilson, the chief engineer of the company, and it completely exposes the way in which things have been worked. He writes: —“ I consider the construction of the Nelson and Springfield sections at the present time a grave mistake from an engineer’s point of view. The line to be made at Nelson will join the Government line ata point near Belgrove, the present terminus, and probably extend up Long Gully and terminate a short distance into a tunnel at the summit of Spooner’s Range. The topographical features of the country will unfortunately render this portion of the line absolutely unremunerative to the company, and useless to either man or beast until the range is pierced and the line extended into the Motueka Valley. This cannot be done with the present available capital, the amount fixed in the contract. To show how adversely this part of the Contract affects the interests of the company, I confidently state that from a financial aspect it would be a gain to the shareholders to place the /’60,000 required to be expended, on deposit, and hand the interest over to the people of Nelson to dispose of as they think best; because not only will these unremunerative works have to bear interest charges of about £yx>o a year, which they cannot earn, but will also be charged by the Government with property tax, as well as charged with local rates. With such an unbusinesslike, not to use the stronger terms of unfair and unjust, arrangement attached to this part of the contract, I am not surprised that the thinking public, knowing the circumstances, doubt the fact that my directors have instructed me to carry out the works at Nelson.”

Here we have a stipulation which means little else than that 460,000 is to be thrown away, and when the company has fulfilled its part of the arrangement it is not likely to waste any further money in that manner. Can anything be more preposterous than the expenditure of Z"6o,ooo upon a line of railway that until completed can be of no use, and must end. and for an indefinite period remain, in a half-pierced tunnel ? The alternative offered in the shape of Z3OOO a year interest might be made good use of by the Nelson local bodies, but it is open to the objection that the annuity would then be clearly set out in its proper light, as the price in hard cash which Nelson was able to secure as the bid for its political support. Sir Julius Vogel once admitted that two million pounds had been spent ’on useless works to purchase political support for the public works policy, but similar candid confessions even at the present time would prove that there is still much to be shocked at.