WHY IS IT?

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1863, 12 February 1880, Page 3

WHY IS IT?

To the Lditor of the Qlohe.

Bib, —Without going into the correctness ef the statement that we should spend our money where we get our credit, if you will grant me sufficient space in your widely circulated paper, I would like to put a few questions. Why is it that we are purchasing so much railway material and rolling stock in America, while America herself, according to the latest Board of Trade returns, is importing from Groat Britain these very articles in large quantities ?

Why is it that fish plates by the thousand, with a fiange on them which had to lo cut off before they could be used were imported from America for «ur railways ? Why is it that passenger engines of American manufacture, which every engineer you moot will tell ycu are inferior in durability to the English engines, are found upon|oifr railways ? Why is it that goods engines ot like manufacture, and which are described in American phraseology as “immense institutions,” but which, in fact, possess neither tho power nor the speed of the ordinary English ballast engine are running on our lines ? These questions have been put to me, Mr Editor, time and again, so I take the liberty of referring them through your columns to your many readers —someone of whom may know. One Government official told me that there is so much “play” on the New Zealand railways that only engines which are thrown together can run on them—turn curves and so forth. This is surely a pretty commentary upon the construction department. But assuming there is something in that statement, would it be a fair deduction that the railway workmen and engineers are such bunglers that nothing but an American made steam hammer and anvil would suit their workshops for I observed lately one of these, weighing some ten or eleven tons, had arrived hero from New York. Yours, &c., Anti Humbug. February 11th, 1880.