The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, September 13, 1910. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 891, 13 September 1910, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, September 13, 1910. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Our Palmerston morning contemporary characteristically raises its head as the Hon. Mr Millar’s apologist in respect to the latter’s indiscreet and unstatesmanlike utterances in the House last Thursday, regarding the request by local bodies throughout the Manawatu, Horowhenua and Raugitikei counties for the extension of the Foxton-Saudou light railway to Greatford, and his blustering threat to make the Foxtou port “go bung.” Mr Millar is to be congratulated upon having the good wishes of at least one apologist, who, in respect to the tram extension and local port is blinded by parochialism. To this individual the improvement of the port and the linking up of the Main Trunk Line spells ruin to Palmerston. Anyone who has given this subject careful consideration —and we contend that neither the Minister nor his impulsive apologist have done so—will at once see how untenable such an argument is. We can excuse Mr Hogan, M.P. for Wanganui, for talking about sidetracking Palmerston—anything to. belittle this district’s sea port pleases Wanganui —but this argument is not endorsed by Palmerston’s principal commercial men. Politically, the Minister has made a very grave blunder in allowing his tongue to run away with him and no doubt he now realises it. On the 30th inst. the wharfage question will come up, and we shall await the Minister’s attitude on that question with interest.

When the representatives from the various local bodies were giving evidence before the Petitions Committee in support of the Sandou light line extension, the Hon. Mr Millar threw out a threat to bludgeon the local Harbour Board in the same manner as had been done to Oamaru. He would make Foxton’s Board “go bung.” Oamaru’s desire to compromise with creditors for los in the pound on an old debt of £IOO,OOO is exercising the minds of some members in consequence of the Railway Department’s immoral treatment. When the Oamaru Harbour Board Enabling Bill (requesting Parliament to agree to the compromise) was discussed last week, the Railway Department was accused of injuring the port of Oamaru by a cutting competition with the sea-borne coastal traffic. The Minister of Railways (the Hon. J. Millar) was questioned on this subject by a Post representative. He declined to admit that the Railway Department had been a contributory factor to the Oamaru Harbour Board’s trouble. The department quoted a special rate to Oamaru, just as it did for the Invercargill section and Auck-land-Te Aroha, to meet the competition of steamers. In the case of Oamaru, the railway rate was not below the steamer rate but was lower than the total of steamer rate and harbour charges. Mr Millar mentioned that the loan in question bad been raised twentyfive years ago, at a time when Oamaru hoped to be a considerable importing and exporting harbour. The expansion of Timaru was not then anticipated, and the Harbour

Board had 'small thought of an Otago Central railway to feed Port Chalmers. These factors and others, with which the railway service to Oaraaru was not connected, had caused the Oamaru Harbour Board’s embarrassment. Mr Millar also remarked that no complaints had been sent to him blaming the Railway Department for any part in the Board’s misfortune. Yet why does he gloat over Oamaru’s misfortune and use it as a threat against the local port which his department has consistently deprived of its revenue for years and years ?

Referring to the Oamaru incident and the Minister’s reference to same the Dominion says : “The position has not been reached-—it began to develop as soon as the late Mr Seddou passed away—when, if we were to note every case in which a Minister contradicts himself or otherwise trips in the darkness that he has no light of settled principles to illumine, we should be doing nothing else, A particularly flagrant case Involving Mr Millar must not, however, be passed over. We recorded how, in giving evidence before the Petitions Committee respecting the Sanson tramway extension proposal, he said that “it they (the Railway Department) had any trouble with Foxton, the Government would deal with Foxton in the same way that they did with Oamaru.’’ Speaking in the House later he was more explicit; he said he would make the Fox ton Harbour Board “go bung.’’ To-day we print a statement by him, in which he “declines to admit that the Railway Department had been a contributory factor to the Oamaru Board’s trouble.” The Oamaru Harbour Board, it will be remembered, “went bung” to use Mr Millar’s phrase, as the result of the manipulation of the railway rates. Mr Millar therefore stands committed to the following statements ; (i) That the Railway Department will make Foxton “go bung” just as it made Oamaru “go bung” ; (2) That the Railway Department did not make Oamaru “go bung.” It is extremely bad luck for Mr Millar that the Oamaru episode happened to come on for discussion about the same time as the Foxton case. Had a few weeks elapsed between the appearances of the two cases in the House he might have hoped that his reckless inconsistency would go unnoticed. We wonder whether Ministers fully realise the effect upon the public of the rapidly-swelling flood of evidence —the almost daily proof—of the Ministry’s lack of principles on almost every debatable question.”