The Dominion. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1910. A RAILWAY POLICY PUZZLE

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 956, 25 October 1910, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1910. A RAILWAY POLICY PUZZLE

The chief anxiety of tho Opunako deputation that urged! the Piume Minister yesterday to push on with, a local railway connection, was to get "something definite" in the way : of a reply. It goes almost without saying, that '.their anxiety was left unsatisfied, but if they take any real interest in politics they can at least consolo themselves with the. reflection that they learned' some highly instructive things about the Government. Since'wo do not know the political necessities of the Government so far as Opunake is concerned, I we aro quite unable to say whether joy or sorrow is waiting for the district in the Public .Works Estimates. In tho- meantime, l there <. are • two"j points., in the Peime Minister's reply to the. deputation that have an interest for a wider community than that of Opunake. A member of the deputation stated that the people of tho 'district were" quite prepared 1 to rate, themselves fOr the railway, and he doubtless, expected that .-tho Prime Minister would immediately 'reply, in pursuance of; the principle ho affirmed in Dunedin last year, that that entirely altered the case, and', that the Government ".would.! proceed with the work. The.-.'PRiMEij Minister, however, took quite anV other line. There was no virtue, he said; .in guaranteeing a line that was likely to pay, and he ■ implied that : the Government would reserve /its': benevolence for those' cases' in which the .lines guaranteed were'hopelessly-,: unpayable. The public has almost entirely-ceased,' by now, to expect any consistency or straightforwardness from the Ministry., It.,"is ; al-' most weary of their endless somer-, saults on 'every possible . question. But the Prime Minister's cnange'of policy''in'-this'"m'otter; is. really'-'too remarkablo not to bo placed on .record.' v . V .' On April,2B -of'last year he -was assailed in Dunedin by a large depu : tation of protest against the, stop-, page of work on the Lawrenoe-Bpx-burgh line. In a lengthy speech,-he referred to the poor prospects,of tho line, and to the undesirableness ; of having the' deficiency on its working borne by the : people in other parts. We quote, from the Very long and practically, .verbatim report in the: Otago Daily Times of April 29:. ■ As common-sense men they could not shut their eyes to the fact that a return of fe.i per cent was so low that-it was, a question of whether the other railways should bo'penalised to keep that'line up. Let, the people join' together and slow that.'they-'were..-sincere, and pay hhy' deficiency on tho rate of interest. That was a perfectly reasonable proposal, and he was prepared to submit a proposal under which they could do so. ." . . "If you want to construct it yourselves we will give you the,.facilities I'or constructing it." Government had dono this twice already. Government had given the Waikaia people money tc carry on their railway, and had treated Waihi in. 'he same way.- .".' . If they believed that they wero going to get a revenue. of, '.£18,579—th0 Government advice was. that it ..was about a fourteenth part of thatthen let .them, under a proper system of '■. legislation, throw tho responsibility upon the people concerned to make up the deficiency so. far as interest is concerned.' If they liked to carry it out at their own risk, Government would give them facilities for doing so. He further developed this idea in replying to an Otago deputation on October 18 last. "Unless applicants' for lines," he said, "were prepared to show their sincerity by helping to prevent the other lines of the country being saddled with unproductive railways, the Government could not come to their assistance. Whero they were sure that the return was not going to give a reasonable result, the Government could not undertake to make the railway. . . . The Government was anxious to help the people. If the people interested in this railway had faith, and were prepared to support that faith, the Government was anxious tohclp them." Commenting upon this statement next day we suggested that tho Government was only making trouble for itself, and within a month this prediction began to be justified. For, on November 18, the Prime Minister had to tell a Clutha Valley deputation,' which offered to guarantee the interest on the line which it desired, that the offer of a guarantee was of no use, and he added this astounding excuse for his'change of attitude: "While it was a good thing for a district to guarantee a lino against loss, thero was no virtue about it in. a case where a line would pay. It was only where there was likely to be a loss that_ thore was any virtue in it." This extraordinary pronouncement and the lamentable proclamations_ and repudiations of what is really a very unwise doctrine, make a sulßcicnt reason why the Prime Minister should now state, once and for all, what he means and what he will do. At present he is the fathor of two conflicting theories, , neither, oi which does his Government

much credit. They are: (1) That the Government should build any line that is guaranteed locally, and, (2), that tho Government should not build any such lino, on the ground that if the return is not going to he good tho Government must not act,, while if it is going to bo good there is no virtue in the guarantee, and, therefore, a moral reason against action by tho Government. Yesterday Sir Joseph Ward said that the Government was not bound by Mr. Hall-Jones's promises. At Dunedin on April 28, 1909, he said that his Government was not going to be tied down by promises made by members of it. There is thus certainly plenty of reasons why Opunake and tho rest of the country should bo favoured by Sir Joseph with a final statement of the Government's policy in this matter, if it has a policy, and of the degree of credence that may be given in the future to any public statement by Ministers.