Enclosure 6.
407
Association, proposed to write to the Press to remove it.
I told him that I should welcome anything Mr. Stewart should write in that sense for I had no reason to believe that there had been any disregard of economy or extravagance in carrying out the work, and nothing I had said in my speech could properly give countenance to that view. Mr Stewart thereupon wrote to the Local Press the letter of which I enclose a copy. The leading paper referred to this letter and said that "the impression that the cost of the Railway is excessive and that money has been wasted" dated from the "discussion" in Finance Committee on 23rd January, 1908, when the Honourable Mr. Keswick and Honourable Mr. Hewett had adversely criticised the expenditure, and the former had called it "an extraordinary sum for a Railway 22 miles long".
9. In my second statement to the Council, I did my best to remove the impression that Mr. Bruce's estimate could be taken as a statement of the probable cost of the line, and that the Railway would in consequence cost more than double the original estimate, and while refraining from any further allusion to the unfortunate bridges, I dwelt on the difficulties of forecasting the cost of so long a Tunnel. Having discharged myself
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