THE MINISTER FOR RAILWAYS AND THE LOCAL PORT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 891, 13 September 1910, Page 3

THE MINISTER FOR RAILWAYS AND THE LOCAL PORT.

Our Palmerston evening contemporary, referring to the Minister tor Railways’ recent remarks concerning the) local port, says ; “The discussion in the House last Thursday on the LevinGreatford tram served to once more bring into prominence the Minister for Railways’ peculiar attitude towards the port of Foxton. It seems that all the antagonism to the Harbour Board’s endeavours to improve the river mouth has its root in a fear that better facilities for shipping will enable the port to compete with the railways. The Minister can only see the railways as a factor in the transit of goods, and nothing must be allowed to diminish their profits. The Hon. Millar even went to the extraordinary length of threatening, in his own phraseology, to make the Harbour Board “go bung ” if it sought to compete with his Department. The public may be left to draw their own impressions from inelegant remarks of this nature. In reality it means that the Minister has set himself up against the public interest. Right at its doors this part of the coast has a port that could be made most useful and serviceable. Cheap sea carriage could be availed of to a far greater extent than is now the case if the facilities at Foxton were increased. The public are not to be allowed to utilise the natural advantages provided, however, simply because the Minister for Railways will neither permit his Department to improve the port nor will he put the Harbour Board in a position to do the necessary work. The railway revenue must be bolstered up at all costs, and so the people within reach of the port of Foxton must continue to pay high railway freights while they have open to them all the advantages of sea carriage. The Minister’s attitude is not a creditable one, and we venture to think it will be remembered at the ballot-box.