GOVERNMENT RAILWAY BUNGLING

Globe, Volume II, Issue 151, 27 November 1874, Page 2

GOVERNMENT RAILWAY BUNGLING

To the Editor of the Globe.

Sib,—l have noticed to-night, in you, paper, the report of a case which took placi in the Resident Magistrate’s Court at Leith field to-day, with reference to an assaul committed by a man named Dillon upon Mi E. G. Wright's gang of men who are forming the line of railway between Ashley and Kowai. It is a crying shame that the Government’s conduct should lead to so many breaches of the peace. Although the Public Works Act of 1871 gives them a great deal of power in taking men’s land, it surely was never intended that they should abuse that power. From the evidence of the case I refer to, it appears to me that that power has been very seriously abused. The line of railway in question has been proclaimed for upwards of two years, and yet the man Dillon, like a great many more, was not aware that the proclamation took his land from him. He thought, and naturally enough, that when his land was taken he ought to be paid for it. Before the Government entered upon his section, it appears he made enquiries as to whom he should apply to for payment: he found out, after some trouble, that he had to ajlly to Mr Maude, and he accordingly did a shame to think that that the euormous staff at his could find time to answer his letter until" “two or three weeks” afterwards, and * ‘ not until after the occurrence on the 16th of November,” viz, the assault complained of. Mr Maude not having answered his letter, Dillon, like most Englishmen, was justified in considering his house and his land, his castle, and tried by force to push out what he considered trespassers. But a private individual has no more chance of standing against a gang of railway men than a peaceable traveller has in contending with a gang of bushrangers. They overpower him in strength, and when it comes to a court case they overpower him with him evidence—it is one man’s evidence against a crowd. This is not the first case of a somewhat similar nature. Mr Morten, in the Ellesmere district, tried somewhat in the same way to force men off land that he had not been paid for, \y chopping up the sleepers that were laid on the land in dispute, and he was overpowered and defeated by the railway gang, whe smothered him with shingle. Although Mr Morton was jostled about a good bit, being a man of education, he was wise enough lot to resort to blows or commit a breach of Ihe peace, or possibly he would have been foored by evidence and found himself in ffe same predicament as Dillon. But instead if mending, things seem to grow worse, for i this case a more glaring piece of injustice ha been done than in Mr Morton’s, because it his case there was a dispute as to “ pibe,” but in this case Dillon informed Mrffaude that he had not been paid for his late, and failed to get any satisfaction from tha l august gentleman, not even so much as an sjswer or an acknowledgment of his letter mtil after the breach of the peace had ben committed, and then Mr Maude descened from his throne, and condescended to lake a proposal. The public will see, upci reading the account of the affray in que.tion, that there is no wonder that enginesruu off the line, in the same manner as tley have done off the Southbridge Line, rhffe men are driven to desperation. Thefi is no doubt that men, ignorant of the lw and of the Ordinances, many of which ca only be read by astute lawyers, and eve those gentlemen of the long robe are ofteipuzzled to interpret them, should consider thmselvea dealt with with as little mercy or faness as the victims of a bushranger, and hey naturally fancy that eithei law or equir will justify them in defending themselve in any way that presents itself to them at le time. And it is only a matter of surprisethat more engines do not runoff the lineiia “mysterious” manner, for a Britisher lannot understand being robbed of his lancbr his castle. To conclude, I link if Mr Maude cannot fulfil the duties deriving upon him in the several public offi.es which he holds with a greater amount ofmnctuality and despatch, he ought, in justic to the public, to give up some of them. B should either resign the Secretaryship of ie Public Works Department in the Provicial Government, or give up the purchasig of land for the General Government. I r ould like to intimate to Mr Richardson arl the other members of the General Governmat, that if they do not see that Mr Maude ioes his work in a more satisfactory mannr, they must not complain if at the next meting of the General Assembly, they are -.ensured for the unsatisfactory manner i which the purchase of lands for railway purposes has been conducted in Canterhry. Yous, &c, Might is not Right. 26th Novembei 1874.