The Railway Commissioners OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

Feilding Star, Volume X, Issue 82, 15 January 1889, Page 3

The Railway Commissioners OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

The "Wanganui Chronicle says : — *" In Mr McK«rrow the country has for many years possessed a valuable public servant, but we have yet to learn that he possesses any special qualfications for the post of Chief •Commissioner of Railways. Messrs Maxwell and Hannay are old railway hauds, and will probably go on as they have done, although with freer hands and another head they may do better work, aud succeed better in pleasing the public than heretofore. The Board beitg composed of civil •servants, will more than likely do its work in the time-honored red-tape style and please nobody." The Hawkes Bay Herald says: — •*' The decision of the Government in connection with the appointment of "Railway Commissioners will meet with general disapproval. What railway experience Mr McKerrow can be supposed to have constitutes a conundrum as provoking as the ' hen and a half puzzle Then there is Maxwell the best abused man in the Colony. When he was General Manager and •amenable to the Government he was not satisfactory, what will he be now, •when he will be practically independent of Parliament, as any person with a grain of sense can see ? We -are pleased that Mr Hannay is appointed, as he is a practical man and -an acquisition, but the decision of the ■Government as a whole is a poor piece •of work."" The Wellington Press says : — " On the whole our feeling about the Commission is that it might have been a ■great deal worse. The Government are to be warmly commended for totally excluding the odious political •element, aud for doing what was to ■be done thoroughly and cleauly, even if it were not the best thing." The Post saj's : — "In the relations "between Mr McKerrow and Mr Maxwell one of two things will surely •"happen. Either the latter will establish an absolute ascendency over his chief, and virtually administer the department, or the former will resent all attempts at dictation, prove impervious to counsel, and persist in going his own way, and acting on his own technically uneducated j udgment. We ere not quite sure which alternative is likely to prove most disastrous to the railway interests of the colony. Certain we are, that whatever degree of 'confidence it might be possible, by a great exercise of faith and hope, to repose in a Railway Board under the •■presidency of Mr McKerrow, will, so far as the public is concerned, be ! utterly dissipated by the presence <>f M r Maxwell as his collegue and a- - distant."

[PSB UNITED PBESS ASSOCIATION. I Wellington. January 14. The Railway Commissioners will aiot be gazetted till tbe business is ready to be taken over. They are anxious to obtain control at onoe, but accounts have to be balanced and other work done, so that it will b i probably February Ist before they can take charge.