The Globe. TUESDAY, MAY 23, 1876.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 601, 23 May 1876, Page 2

The Globe. TUESDAY, MAY 23, 1876.

The Provincial Government management —or to speak more correctly mismanagement of the railway, appears to be reaching its culminating point. We have already had a most pitiable exhibition of incompetency and shiftiness in the late strike, caused, we have no hesitation in averring, by the vacillation and utter want of tact exhibited by the Government in dealing with the railways as the delegates of the public. It surely was bad enough when a Government —save the mark—had to eat humble pie to its employes , and was dependent upon the good offices of a private citizen to prevent the total stoppage of both goods and passenger traffic; but even this falls far short of the thorough incompetency, and we had almost written reckless mismanagement, which prevails, and has prevailed, for some time in the Railway Department. Cartloads of grain are left outside the stations on the line exposed, but for a tarpaulin cover, to the weather, through the sheds being filled to overflowing owing to want of trucks, and it is a well known fact that a great deal has been spoilt during the present season simply from the utter inability of the department, even with all the increased facilities and appliances to cope with the exigencies of the traffic. “ Complaints are numerous,” say our morning contemporaries, and no wonder, when out of nearly every load delivered by the farmer at the stations, a large percentage is spoilt through being detained owing to want of foresight and energy on the part of our Government of progress. But even though all be dark as yet, we have hopes of them. The record to-day that the energetic and economical Government have discharged a faithful servant in consequence of one bag of wheat being mislaid, gives us new life, and encourages us to believe that a Government so careful even in minor details of the public interests will yet rise superior to the petty carping and complaints of a few discontented farmers. What matters a few hundreds bushels of grain spoilt, because some one —not a stationmaster —has blundered ; what matters it that ships have to wait nine or ten days to discharge when strings of empty trucks leave the Lyttelton station ? Nothing, but let a bag of wheat or a package of samples go amiss, and whether he is responsible or not some unhappy wight is mulcted. It does not at all signify that after a good servant has been dismissed the missing bag was found, the Government have shewn how prompt, how business-like they are, even though it be in small things. Henceforth when people grumble at the railway management —as strange to say they will —let them, remember the bag of wheat, and the Government action thereon, and be silent.

Tub Christchurch District Drainage Board at their meeting yesterday agreed to a very important resolution, which is well worth calling attention to. The one to which we allude is that sanctioning the taking over of the various drains and watercourses throughout the Hoad Board and suburban districts included within the area laid down by the Act. Though of course the cost of keeping these clear will still come out of the pockets of the ratepayers, we may reasonably hope I that the Board will take mere trouble to \ keep them clear, and thus prevent flooding ! than has been the case under the Bead j Boards, because it is a notable fact that for

many years they have not been touched. But we in Christchurch proper—if we may use the term —are very deeply interested in one of the drains taken over by the Board, viz, the south drain running along the belt, and which near the river end of Madras and Barbadoes streets has during the summer months been a source of much annoyance, and the fear of disease. This is an open drain a nd one too which at the period we speak of is remarkable for the pestilential vapour arising from it. The City Council, in whose hands it has been, have persistently declined to do anything to remedy the evil, and it has continued a nuisance to the neighbourhood, It cannot be filled in, because the water it carries off can only go that way; but now the Board have control of it we hope that they will take some means, either by making it a covered drain or otherwise, to avert the evil consequences which are sure to arise if it is left in its present state until next summer.