The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1888. THE RAILWAY COMMISSION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1996, 24 November 1888, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1888. THE RAILWAY COMMISSION.

It was announced a day or two ago that one of the first things done by the Government after the return from Australia of the Minister of Public Works would be 'the appointment of the Chief Commissioner of Hallways. Mr Mitchelson returned to Wellington on Thursday, and therefore it is quite possible that before the ink with which these remarks are written is dry, wo shall know the name of the person upon whom the choice of Ministers has fallen. We are fully prepared to find that one of the old railway staff has been selected and are very much inclined to think that nothing elso has been intended all along. For we decline to believe that if Ministers had been m earnest m their quest of outside talent they would have failed to find a suitable man, and we notice that our Wellington contemporary the ., "Post" agrees with us m our opinion upon tbe matter. In a recent article on the subject that journal says : — " If the Government had really desired to get a first-class man as Chief Commissioner they could we believe, have secured the services of Mr Eddy, before New South Wales obtained them. Mr Eddy stands at the' very top of the list of capable English .experts m the art of railway management, and had the New Zealand Government really meant business it would not have lost him for the sake of a few hundreds a year of salary. From the very first, however, we suspect the Government to have been I utterly insincere m its professions of a desire to obtain a competent .English manager, and fully determined to "job " one of its colonial pets into the Commissionership. ihe cabling to and from the Agent- General has simply been for the purpose of throwing dust m the eyes of the public, by creating an impression that the Government has no resource but to find a Chief Commissioner of. Railways m the colony. Time -will show, but certainly no more time should now be wasted m make-believe. If there is a job to be perpetrated it had better be done at once, so that the public may know the worst. It would be very difficult to constitute any Board which could possibly manage the railways worse than they are manged now.'' The public generally will heartily endorse the laßt remark, but it will take a < good deal to persuade them that " dog's leg for dog's bite "—in other words the appointment under a new nam«> of the old leaven, is the right way to effect a enre. But for all that we suspect that that is what it intended. Nous verrons.