The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 1888. Railway Management

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 108, 12 April 1888, Page 2

The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 1888. Railway Management

-» I do not love thoe, 0 Maxwell, The reason why, I cannot tell ; But this alone I know full well, I do not love thee, O Maxwell. Our contemporary, the New Zealam Times, on Tuesday last, took up th cudgels in defence of the railwa; management of the colony apparently but actually in defence of the Auto crat Mr Maxwell, to whom the eet tier* of New Zealand are co mud indebted for the present " system/ The Times challenges our statement made some time ago, that " an orde of two million feet of white piue tim ber had to be refused by the miller here because they could not get a cer tain concession, trifling in itself, bu one which made the difference of tak ing the contract, or rejecting it." Ou contemporary also refers to anothe charge made by an Auckland contem porary, but with that we have nothinj to do, and will therefore confine our selves to own own affair. The Time says : — " Now the first indictment amounts t thiß : — That a large timber contract wa lost by a Manawatu firm because th railway authorities refused to make i & trifling concession in freight. This 1 undoubtedly a serious imputation on thi capacity of the management and canno be lightly passed over. We have there fore carefully investigated the circum stances, and have succeeded in elicitinj the full facts of the case." Our worthy contemporary here drags ii Sir Robert Stout and Sir F. Dilloi Bell, for no earthly reason we cai see, as they have nothing to do witl the case in hand. He goes on to say :— " The explanation of the misdeeds at tnbuted to the railway authorities is tha the alleged occurrences did not take place There is no foundation at all for th statements made. The white pine con tract was lost by the Manawatu firm, no through any refusal of concession on th part of tne railway, but in conseqaence o a difficulty about sea freight to Melbourne So far from any reasonable concession being withheld, the Govejnment had re duced its rate for white pine by about 3: per cent. The only thing which was re fused — and very properly, too — was t< make a special reduction in favor o Manawatu as against Wairarapa am other parts of this Colony. Differentia rating such as would have been gros favoritism and jobbery." We do admire a good bold statement and reverence its author, but we lib it to be supported by the truth. No that we believe our contemporar would make a deliberate misstatement but in the present instance he ha been " stuffed like a goose" by thos who are interested in making hie their defender or apologist. "When we condemned the stupidit; which had caused such a loss to thi district, we aaid : — 4 ' Had that haulage been undertaken the extra goodß freight from Wellingto: to feed and clothe the additional hand who would have been employed with thei: families, would have more than repaj, tha Department for the imaginary los they might have sustained." We did not ask for a special roductioi in favor of Manawatu as against Wai rarapa, and other parte of the colony Any sensible man who read our articli in the same liberal spirit in which i was written, would see that it woult apply to the whole colony as well ai to Wellington. It only conveys, ir other words, what we have before sc often said : that the lighter the chargei are on produce going to a market 01 port, the better consumers in the country can afford to pay higher return freights on goods included in class A. in concluding his article our contem-

porary becomes affected almost to tears, and says : — " As to our railways generally, if relieving them from political pressure and interference fails, we can only see two feasible alternatives. One is to dispose of the lines altogether ; the other is to work them free of all charge to the users. Either would be in every sense a radical ! reform," : Such a confession of utter weakness ie to he pitied.