RETAINED FOR THE DEFENCE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue 18, 2 November 1880, Page 2

RETAINED FOR THE DEFENCE.

The Marion paper of Saturday professes to give a short and " complete " answer to our criticism upon the railway timetable for Wanganui Cattle Show day by saying that " Last year an early train left Foxton, and it conveyed only on% passenger." We have a shrewd suspicion that in this instance the Advocate has been " retained for the defence," and that its statement is inspired. As with a good many other inspirations in these days, a grain of salt is necessary before we can swallow the assertion. But accepting for the sake of argument its truth, let us ask, Are the people of Foxton to be for ever debarred from going to the Wanganui Cattle Show because on the Show day in the year 1879 only one passenger left by the early train ? Is one year to be taken as a criterion for all time to come ? Such an argument would be urged by no journal but the Marton paper. Besides, the Advocate, with its usual insincerity, endeavours to make a play on the word " early," in order to insinuate we wished an " extra " train, whereas our whole complaint was that the ordinary morning train from Foxton to Wanganui was taken off the line. Then, again, if only one passenger left Foxton upon a certain morning in 1879, why is it that the Marton paper has not long ere this advocated upon that ground that the Foxton train should be dispensed with altogether ? Far weaker arguments than that would be, appear in almost every issue of the paper in question. As a matter of fact, several settlers rode into Foxton on Wednesday night distances varying from 14 to 8 miles, to go to Wanganui by train the next morning, only to find the train did not run, and one actually walked several miles to warn a neighbour he would not be able to go to the show, as he intended. Nine persons, to the knowledge of the writer, and whose names we are prepared to give, intended going from Foxton. Besides Foxton, there is the large district between it and Palmerston, but the ! Marton paper does not enlighten us

as to how many passengers there were ibfWangftnui in the train last year when it reached Palmerston, where Mr Rotheram's train this year began. If Mr Rotheram had saved £20 by the alteration this year, wo could have understood his action. Instead of that he ran two trains where one would have done, he lost eight or ten pounds to the railway, he insulted a large district which contributes at least one-fifth of the whole railway revenue, he took off the ordinary morning train for Wanganui, and he caused considerable annoyance and disappointment to a number of persons who wished to visit the Show. And the only answer is that " Last year only one passenger went from Foxton by the morning train to the Show!" Age evidently does not mature the Advocate's judgment, nor increase its sense of the fitness of things.