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Hokitika Guardian, 25 July 1923, Page 2

Tiik freight charge tor timber over the Midland line, will, it is expected, increase the Coast timber export- to Canterbury and the Fust Const by some fifty percent by that route. It is being estimated that fully hulf-n-milliun feet of timber will be cariiod on an average over the line weekly. This would total in the region of twenty-live million feet, for the year. The export bv sea. for the Canterbury trade Ips been in the neighborhood of seventeen million feet, so there i.s likely to be a very substantial increase. This enhanced export will mean eonsidet able provision in the way of rolling stork to effectively handle the traffic, and it will mean busy times for the tunnel traffic w hen goods will he taken through when the passenger service trains are not operating. The prospects of this trade bear out the oxjectations as to tno stimulating effect the railway would hate upon the Coast, the commodities front which arc sine to he in iia(■rersed demand when speedy and regular traffic is assured. It i.s a very pleasing outlook and confirms t.t once the expectations upon which the persistent agitation on the Coast for the completion of the through line, were built up.

Thu principal thing which the Press of Eondou lias to say about the new Prime Minister of Britain, Mr Stanley Baldwin, is that very little is known about him. Truth’’ heads an article with the caption ‘‘The Unknown Premier” and other journals, while naturally loth to exhibit their ignorance. have shown by the brevity of

their biographical references to tho new head of the Government that lie has no very lengthy political history. Sir Sidney Low, writing in the “Weekly Dispatch," emphasises the newness of Mr Baldwin. Tho new Prime Minister he says, is “a little older than Sir Robert Peel and Mr Lloyd George when they accepted the Premiership, but in comparison with some other of his predecessors lie might almost bo called a voting man. Not only that, but he is also relatively a new man. Peel, Russell, Gladstone, Disraeli, l»nl Salisbury, Mr Balfour, even Mr Asquith and Mr Lloyd George, had been conspicuous and notable figures in tbo ! party strife long before they rose to j the highest place. But Air Baldwin j .vn— unknown outside the House of Commons, and not at all prominent in that Assembly until a couple of years ago. Even a year ago it would scarcely have occurred to anybody, and certainly not to himself, that he would so soon be called upon to occupy a past of supremo respnosibility and power.” “Novel as Iris position is in other respects (continues Sir Sidney Low) his appointment clashes with some wellcherished traditions. He does not belong to one of the “governing families” —Cecils, Cavendishes, Stanley, and the rest. He has never been a groat- party leader—not till now a party leader at all—not a. brillimnt sp/eaker, but a quiet, sincere, good-tempered man, “no orator as Brutus is,” who says what he has to say in plain and rather lewwords, that do not conceal the capacious brain and strong character behind them. Ho is essentially a man of business, and that also is by way of an innovation. The Premiers of the past havo been peers, landowners, country gentlemen, lawyers, professional politicians. Mr Bonar I*aw was engaged in commerce in his earlier years, but not on the samo scale or for so largo a part- of his life as his successor. Mr Baldwin is tho first real “captain of industry” who has been placed at the head of a Cabinet, the first Prime Minister who has himself actively directed and controlled one of those great manufacturing establishments on which me prosperity of Britain is based.”