The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9, 1875.

Evening Star, Issue 3835, 9 June 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9, 1875.

The rejection of the Peninsula and Ocean Beach Railway Bill was not unexpected. This does not at all mean that the line was tried and found wanting on its merits. In their efforts to provide their bantling with too much artificial stimulant, the promoters crushed the feeble spark of life it contained, Mr M ‘Lean hit theriyht nail when he said, “By all means let private interest be encouraged, but not with public money,” The Government having been persuaded to take charge of the Bill might have had something a little better to say for it than that possibly ocean baths might, under certain circumstances, be established on the beach. A saltwater dip, however beneficial, is hardly an argument for giving a private company unlimited privileges, and right to retain as long as it needed it, as much land in the centre of the town and along the foreshore as it chose to ask. The Government had put themselves in a false position by undertaking to introduce the Bill. Essentially a private Bill, it should have been introduced by a private member—say the member for the Peninsula —referred to a railway committee in the usual way, giving an opportunity to the pro motors to substantiate their claim by evidence. This course was pointed out by more than one of those who opposed I he Bill, The extremely false position the Government has drifted into by undertaking the responsibility of judging what Railway Bills should be entertained by the Council, and what ones should be rejected will be more manifestly apparent when the Outram-Grey-town Bill is under consideration. That is a line which the Government have refused to patronise, because the Provincial Secretary does not think, from his 1000 l knowledge of the Taieri, that it is the best route that a line to Outram should take. Yet there is no alternative line proposed as yet—only a theoretical possibility pointed out in the future. If the Outram-Greytown Bill gets advanced to a second reading, we can well fancy the objectionable position Mr Reid will have put himself into by adopaiug certain lines, bringing them in with all the weight of his Government, while rejecting others. Virtually this is usurping for the Provincial Executive all the functions of an independent Railway Committee, whose operations should always be under check by the Government, The adverse decision of the Council on the Peninsula and Ocean Beach proposal was clearly inspired by the invidious nature of the Government connection with it, and will in no way prejudice the real merits of the Bill, which ara certainly far beyond bathing machines, in its introduction into the Assembly. To accuse those who opposed the Bill of wishing to be bribed, as is done by one clear-sighted and extremely virtuous contemporary, the ‘Daily Times,’ is singularly unfortunate. The Council was asked to assent to what it had no power to grant, and, besides, to sanction a most vicious principle of Government patronage to private Railway Bills. With commendable good sense a majority were found to repudiate the extremely false position chalked out for them.