THE GLOBE. THURSDAY, JULY 29, 1880.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2006, 29 July 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. THURSDAY, JULY 29, 1880.

There has been a considerable amount of fencing with regard to the now more or less well-worn question of the construction of the defective railway waggons. Mr. Saunders, as is usual with him, has lifted up his voice in the House with no uncertain sound, and the Opposition papers, unable to controvert the truth of his statements as a whole, have seized on every little inaccuracy that may occur in the Report of the Commission, and have built thereon a defence of the present system, and a consequent attack on the general truthfulness and accuracy of the work of the Commission itself. Speaking broadly, the Civil Service Commission drew attention to the condition of certain railway waggons built in Dunedin. These waggons were stated to be utterly and ridiculously unserviceable, Mr. Saunders, in his speech, declaring that " the only wonder was that the nails in the flooring boards were

sufficiently strong to keep them together long enough to travel empty from Dunedin to Ohristchurch." Specimens from some of these waggons were sent up to Wellington, and Mr. Saunders said that the Locomotive Engineer for the Canterbury Railways had mentioned to him in a late letter that he has in the sidings at Addington waggons in a condition somewhat similar to those already reported on, which can be at any timo examined. All this is perfectly plain and straightforward. An accusation is made respecting certain waggons constructed in Dunedin, specimens are produced, and members are invited to inspect for themselves a siding full of cripples. But a slight inaccuracy had occurred in the wording ef the Report of the Commission, which, although not in any way altering its purport, has given to the supporters ©f the present regime a loophole through which they have endeavoured to wriggle. The Report states that waggons built by contract in Dunedin were delivered in Christchurch at the end of last year in a disgraceful state. Now, there are two inaccuracies here. First, the waggons were delivered at the end of 1878 or the beginning of 1879, not at the end of 1879, and in the second place they were not built by contract, but by the Locomotive Department in Dunedin. The first inaccuracy is one not easy to explain, but the second one is fully accounted for by a paragraph in the letter from Mr. Smith to Mr. Saunders, which has before been alluded to. And here we may remark that our contemporary the " Star," with great disingenuousness, has, in its leading article of Monday last, when defending Mr. Blair and running down the Commission, most carefully omitted all mention of this paragraph, although the statement contained therein quite clears the way as to the true solution of the question. The paragraph runs as follows : —" Now, I (Mr. Smith) beg to explain that my assertion that the stock was built by the Public Works Department was based upon a letter written by the Locomotive Engineer at Dunedin, in which it was stated that the waggons were built by the Public Works Department, and for the bad work in which * he was not responsible ;' and this letter was endorsed to m a by the Commissioner for Railways. And I beg to call your particular attention to the attached copy of my reply to that communication, dated ' Ist May, 1879.' " Mr. Smith had complained of these waggons, and had been informed by the Locomotive Engineer at Dunedin, backed up by the Commissioner of Railways, that they were built by contract by the Public Works Department. This information he had naturally taken as correct. As it turns out, it was extremely incorrect, although vouched for by Mr. Conyers himself.

Let us see now how Mr. Blair uses these two inaccuracies in the Report to throw dust in the eyes of the uninitiated. He was asked by the Commission, who thought, as explained above, that the defective waggons were built by his department, to offer his remarks on the subject. His answer is as follows:

" Wellington, June 29th, 1880. " No waggons built by contract under this department at Dunedin were delivered in Christchurch at the end of last year, and I believe the same remark applies to the Railway Department. " The last contract for waggons in Dunedin was finished in August, 1877, consequently they had been running for thirteen months before the line to Ohristchurch was opened, and nearly two and a half years before the date referred to. I may add that, so far as waggons built under the supervision of this department in Dunedin at any time are concerned, there is not the slightest ground for thinking them defective ; they have in every instance been well made, with proper materials.

"As the proposition laid down in asking the questions is incorrect, they cannot, o: course, be answered otherwise than as above. "W. N. Biaib, " Engineer in Charge, Middle Island."

Here Mr. Blair chooses to be judiciously blind as to the drift of the Commissioners' enquiry. The general purport of that enquiry plainly pointed to certain defective waggons which the Commission thought had been built by the Public Works Department, but which had in reality been built by the Railway Department. Sheltering, not himself exactly, but the present regime behind this mistake, and taking advantage also of the mistake as the date of delivery, Mr. Blair proceeds to state that no waggons at all were delivered at end of last year, and that the last built by the Public Works Department were those put together in 1877. The impression which he would by this line of reply apparently wish to make is that the Commission had got hold of a mare's nest, and that the defective waggons had nothing whatever to do with Dunedin. Now, in the face of the fact that the said defective waggons were built in the Dunedin Railway Workshops, this reply cannot be called straightforward. With the concluding paragraph of Mr. Blair's letter in particular we totally disagree. He says, "as the proposition laid down in asking the questions is incorrect, they cannot, of course, be answered otherwise than as above." We say distinctly that they could have been answered otherwise. Mr. Blair, although his own department was not answerable for the waggons, might well have been more open with the Commisssion, and need not have sheltered another Department by playing with the text of the enquiries made, when the spirit of them was so apparent. Mr. Blair is a servant of [the public, and as such his first duty presumably lies in defending the public from injury. He [has, however, in preference, chosen, through a mere quibble, to shelter another department. There are the waggons, who made them, and why are they defective ? asks the Commission. The question is plain enough in all conscience. Mr. Blair has not met the enquiry in a straightford manner. But we trust that the matter will not be allowed to rest where it is. Somebody is responsible for those waggons. Let the fault be pinned on the right individual or individuals. Let Mr. Smith's letter of May Ist, 1879, to which he calls particular attention, be produced. Endeavours have been made to hoodwink the public in the matter. Let the Commission stick boldly to its text: —Who made thoso waggons ?