Economic Value.

The Railway is calculated to be of great importance to the South Island of New Zealand. Uniting as it will several centres of population, its construction will being not only the ordinary benefits of railway communication to a district hitherto almost isolated, but it will have the peculiar advantage of connecting districts of totally dissimilar character. On the one side there is a pastoral and agricultural country a food-producing country, but with little timber or mineral,—on the other a district containing timber, coal, iron, gold and many other minerals in abundance. Interchange of traffic between the two must therefore be considerable and permanent.