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Manawatu Herald, Volume I, Issue 66, 15 April 1879, Page 2

Our Palmerston contemporary, iv his last issue, takes the Hon. Mr Ballance in hand regarding his state* ment that Parliament had fixed the junction of the Wellington Railway at Foxton. The tone of Satin day's article is certainly different to that adopted three months before. On Jan* vary 11, our contemporary wrote : — We defy Mr Macandrew to point out when or how he received authority from the Legislature, fixing the final route. We do not say that it is not within the province of the Government to determine where the junction is to be; but when it seeks to foist the onus of its tergiversation, duplicity, and trickery upon the Assembly, we feel called upon to expose the cheat, and contradict the statement. Three days afterwards, we replied as follows : — In the first schedule of the Railways Construction Act, at the hea 1 of the list of b'nes authorised to be constructed, stands "Wellington to Foxton by West Coast." It is not Wellington to Manawabu, or Pal* merston, or Fitzlierbert. The Government are bound to the Act, and before the route to Palmerston can be decided on, I arliament must expunge those words from the Railways Construction Act, 5 878, and pass an Amendment Act re-defining the terminus Our contemporary's reply was characteristic. It was, "Oh, indeed, you don't say ! Perhaps it did, and perhaps it didn't." Since then, however, Mr Ballance has at Foxton and Palmerston stated that Parliament had fixed the junction at Foxton, and that an Amendment Act would be re» quired, before it could be taken elsewhere. Now our contemporary admits the Parliamentary authority. He says : — According to the Hon. the Treasurer, (he oily — or, at least, the greatest — claim the s mthern people have to the Wellington railway is that in the schedule of appropriations the proposed line is referred to as the '•Foxton" railway. The basis of the claim is, therefore, so weak that it certainly appears almost cowardly to destroy it, but our duty as chroniclers impels us not only to state that the title' was not originally that having such an attraction for Mr Ballance, but that the change of appellation was effected by a clever though particularly shady piece of trickery. * * * No one should know better than the Hon. Mr Ballance how easy it is to remedy the mistake (?) made, by the passage of a short Bill — if needs be, through all its stage* — at one Bitting. It may be taken for certain, therefore, that upon this matter our contemporary has swallowed the leek holus-holus. The argument of our contemporary is that Mr Travers introduced a private Bill into the Lower House entitled "The Hutt, Waikanae, and Palmerston North Railway Act, 1877." The Bill passed the Lower House, but what its fate was eventually, our contemporary j apparently does not know. la it

on tlio Statute 13odk; ill uuy shape ? or dries oiiir Contemporary wish us Iso iiifei- that the Upper Housg passed the Bill, with Foxton inserted instead of Pulmei'stoiijduringthe session of 1877 ? If sj, then Foxton has a cloublo Parliamentary g-uai'anto'o. J\iv Travers was ineroly a privato number in the House, ami from what we know of his relations with the Messrs lh'o ,'donj we are inclined to place" tevy little rolianoo upon the fact that he introduced a Bill to carry the line into Palniovston In fact, if our memory serves us correctly, Mr Travers himself has thrown overboard the Palmerston idea, as he called a meeting of Weilrngtou merchants during August of last year, at which he hinted that the Government were opposed to the " Wellington- Foxton " line, and suggested that Messrs I3rogdon and Sons be asked to float a private loan in London to form the line. If we remember rightly, Mr Trafersj at that meeting) made" no reference whatever to Palmerston. But quite apart from any such thing, is the fact that the only reference, so far, in Pailiameut to Palmerston, was in the Bill introduced by Mr Travers, in 1877. Foxtou on the other hand, was distinctly referred to repeatedly during last session as the intended junction, and as we have since pointed out, before the line can go olsewhore, the schedule to the liailway Construction Act, 1878, must be altered, and an Amendment Ac* passed. : _■ ■ ■ ■ „.,;