THE UNAUTHORIZED GRAHAMS TOWN RAILWAY.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1555, 12 February 1879, Page 4

THE UNAUTHORIZED GRAHAMS TOWN RAILWAY.

["N«w Zealand Times "] "Boy," siid lhe «e ions gncer of the jestbook to his youthful apprentice, have you put all that sand to the sugar ?" "Yes, sir," replied tholad. "Haveyou mixed it well?" "Yeß,sir." " Then," said this exemplary master, come up to praverß." "Si-," said the H!>»orablo Mr Maoandrew, in his late Public Works Statement, " our experience, whatever it has cost ui>, should at le;\st have taaght us in what direction, and in what manner, we can beet Bpend the money hereafter available for such undertakings [railways] Not only ought we resolutely to resolve that we will never again sanction the commencement of a nulway as to which we have not at least reasonable evidence that it will pay ; but wo should equally resolve that as one point of our experience ten shillings shall be made to represent as much work as twenty shillings have—unfortunately in too many oaoes —represented heretofore." After this hypocritical homage to public virtue on the part of his Government, the Premier himself proceeded to " sand the sugar " at the Thames by turning the first sod of a political railway at Grahamstown. Not only is I here a want of reasonable or any evidence that Sir George Grey's railway will p.iy, but the project has the additional "defect or recommenda tion that it has never received the sanction of Parliament, and in fact has never been heard of there at all. It is a new line projected specially by the honorable member for the Thara«s for the convenience and advantage of his constituents, ar d for the restoration of their political confidence in him and in the present Government, which had suffered alarming collapse. One hundred and sixty or seventy thousand pounds iB perhaps a larger sum than " the men and the women and the little children" in other parts of the colony would, if they were consulted, like to pay to the Thames people for »uch an intangible or perishable article as faith in Sir George Grey and his colleagues ; it seems moreover to be particularly hard upon th« Canterbury children who, according to the Premier, have alreadv suffered cruel wrongs at the hands of the landed aristocracy of that place, who have now got a renewed tenure of their runs in consideration of paying a sufficient rental aunually to the State. As this work of Sir George Grey's has not been provided for in the Railway s Construction Act, it is not of course subject to the conditions imposed by that Act. These require that before any contracts are made plans and estimates of the whole work must be prepared and laid before the Governor in Council for approval, and that no such approval shall be given except upon the certifi cate of the chief engineer that the route proposed to be taken for the railway line was the best available. The colony may thus be now subjected to an unlawful pecuniary charge of great magnitude, for an unauthorised work, without having the advantage of any of the safeguards with which the representatives of the people in Parliament have thought it necessary to surround undertakings of which they formally approved. As the people of New Zealand are not yet sufficiently educated to prefer personal to parliamentary government, and are not of the clay that can bo moulded into serfs, it is not, we think, improbable that this arbitrary assumption of power over the public purse, as well as some other recent autocratic acts that wo wot of, may meet with resistance in Parliament when next the Houses meet; the Premier may then hear the closing sentences of his fine stump speech at the Thames, about giving favors to certain individuals over others, echoed baok to him by a " strong and united Opposition," thus :—" Such Government and such a ays tern is rotten, and if attempted to be enforced oannot exist for a day. The clay is truly noble, and will be moulded into a noble shape. Those potters who try to act otherwise will find that the whole population of New Zealand will cry out— Away with you, we will be moulded by no such potters as you are."