REALLY, MR MILLAR !

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 892, 15 September 1910, Page 3

REALLY, MR MILLAR !

In a letter to Mr D. H. Guthrie, M.P., in reply to a request for better facilities lor the convey ance of stock in the busy season, the Hon. J. A. Millar, Minister for Railways, said: —“The whole trouble arises from the fact that everybody who has iat stock or store stock desires to send them along to the market when favourable prices are ruling, and as a result the bulk of the sheep traffic carried by the railways is conveyed during a period of from three to four months of the year at the outside, and for the remaining eight or nine months the greater bulk of the live stock wagons stand idle at the various railway depots.” When the letter was read at the Chamber of Commerce meeting last night, Mr H. Tolley characterised it as “ full of absurdities.” Mr Milllar seemed to think farmers should fatten their stock all the year round, and not iu the summer wheu the rape and turnips were available. Mr Pirani said the committee it was proposed to set up to draft a reply might follow out Mr Millar’s idea, and arrange for the output of butter to spread over the whole year, and so with every product of the soil. They should also arrange to hold half the race meetings in the winter, and this would help Mr Millar to keep his waggons on the move, in tact, if the committee could so arrange it with the elements, the millennium would soon come so far as Mr Millar’s railways were concerned. Speaking on the question of making the railways pay, Mr Pirani said Mr Millar could take a step iu that direction by charging full rates for racehorses travellingjby train.—Feilding Star.