RAILWAY SLEEPER CONTRACTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue 66, 19 April 1881, Page 2

RAILWAY SLEEPER CONTRACTS.

The General Manager of Railways is at present advertising for the supply and delivery at Lyttelton of sawn railway sleepers. In the two Wellington papers it ia stated " Specifications and forms of tender may be outlined at the Stores Manager's office, Government Buildings, Wellington, and the Railway Offices at Masterton, Pioton, Christchurch, and Lyttelton." We first noticed the entire omission of Manawatu from the above list when reading the N. Z. Times of Saturday. The same names were found in the Eveniug Post, whilst the advertisement could not bo found in either of the old-established Manawatu papers. At last we discovered it in the Mana watu Standard, and in the advertisement in that journal Palmerston was included amonst the list of railway offices at which specifications were lying* It is evident that the specifications being left at the Palmerston office is an afterthought, or it would have appeared in the Wellingt>n journals ; whilst it is also a significant fact that only one (and that the youngest) of the four Manawatu papers was se ected us the Government advertising medium in this County for the sleoper contract. What the sawruillers of Manawatu have don« to deserve this attempt to

shut them out from tendering for a Government contract it would bo difficult to say. Many people supposed that when our representative became a Hftisfer a>sold«n age of Governme»t expenditure would begin. It would appear as if instead of receiving, additional advantages wo were now to bo deprived of the fow crumbs we received before Mr Johnston's elevation.