The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, September 14, 1911. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1043, 14 September 1911, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, September 14, 1911. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Although the Foxton-Palmers-ton branch of the New Zealand Railways is one of the best paying in the service, it has to put up with much of the cast-off rolling stock, including obsiete engines, from other lines. When a carriage is too old and shabby for use on some of the other branches it is transferred to finish its career on the Foxton branch, and passengers on this line are privileged to pay first-class fares to travel in carriages that, for comfort and convenience, are a long way behind the second-class ones in general use. Some of the secondclass carriages we have to travel in would not be tolerated anywhere else. We are a long-suffer-ing community. It is quite time that passengers on this branch of the railway received better treatment from the powers that be. The latest injustice is the use ot a ballast engine in place of the one generally used, which is at present undergoing repairs in the workshops, having broken down on the journey from Palmerston North on Monday evening last. Phis morning, whilst shunting, a tube burst in the engine, and the train which usually leaves at 9 o’clock was delayed until 10,37 whilst temporary repairs were being made. Delays of this nature are very serious to the business men and travelling public, and it is high time that Foxton received better treatment from the Department. Mr Millar's object of “ making the railways pay ” is a very laudable one, but if to do this it is necessary to put a ballast engine on such an important branch oi the line as ours, well, it is quite time he made an alteration in his policy.

How differently the same thing may be viewed from different political standpoints is exemplified by two paragraphs which we reproduce below. The New Zealand Times, having studied Sir Joseph Ward’s utterances, arrives at the favourable conclusion that: “ The Budget now before the country is at once a reply and a challenge to criticism, an author i-

tative survey ol the national undertakings and a declaration of future policy. On its financial side the Budget shows a record of advanced enterprise and prudent administration. On its constructive side initiative is revealed in the realm of practical business-like development blended with the extension of humanitarian principles.” The Dominion, however, seems much perturbed, and in its auger fires a whole broadside as under :—“lt is the most remarkable mixture of finance irrelevancies, and barefaced electioneering that has ever been presented to the people of New Zealand by a responsible Minister of the Crown under pretext of reviewing the country’s finances and expounding the policy of the political party in power. It is the last despairing effort of a leader who, filled with terror and dismay at the growing signs of antagonism to his rule, seeks to pacify the populace with bribes and doles which come out of their own pockets.”