LEVIN DISPLEASED.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18405, 11 June 1925, Page 8

LEVIN DISPLEASED.

EXPRESS STOP CUT OUT. PROTEST TO MR COATES. (pEESa ASSOCIATION TELEOBAH.) LEVIN, June 10. The Prime Minister, the Hon. J. G. Coates, attended a crowded meeting held in Lovin to-night to protest against the Railway Department's action in excluding Levin from tho list of stopping places for express trains, a privilege enjoyed for the past twenty years. The Mayors of Levin and Foxton, the Chamber of Commerce, and local bodies' representatives put their views before Mr Coates, asserting that no other town of the same size in the Dominion was being so unjustly treated, and that country people A»jre being penalised lit the interests of through passengers. In reply, Mr Coates said the Department was out to consider the interests of the people as a whole, and tho expresses were primarily for Hawke's Bay and Taranaki. He offered to allow one up express, the Napier, to stop at Levin, also to speed up tho evening train to Wellington. Ho also thought the mail services which had been interfcred with by the cut could bo improved. Replying to a suggestion that the expresses could be speeded up to enable a local stop, Mr Coates said he felt desperately nervous about asking the Department to exceed the safety factor agreed on by the Departmental experts. It.only wanted one big accident to happen and tho railways would be pinned down to a certain mileage per hour. He felt a personal responsibility in the matter. "Please do not bring in the political stunt;" said the Prime Minister to an interjector, who suggested a resort to political action. It is not worth twoponce so far as lam concerned. It makes my blood boil to think anybody should think such arguments can weigh with the Minister or the Railway Board." (Applause.)