Manawatu Herald SATURDAY, NOVEMB. 20, 1920. PALMERSTON RAILWAY DEVIATION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2205, 20 November 1920, Page 2

Manawatu Herald SATURDAY, NOVEMB. 20, 1920. PALMERSTON RAILWAY DEVIATION.

OUR Palmerston morning contemporary says the Palmerston Vigilance League, which is opposed to the Palmerston deviation, has escaped notice because the organisation had preferred to work subterraneously. Our contemporary does not take the League seriously, and is sceptical about the 500 signatures of oppositionists to the deviation, as set forth in the Authorisation Bill. We agree with our contemporary when it says “it is not difficult to get signatures to a petition so long as it doesn't cost anything to sign.’’ We have a lively recollection of that fact locally. Anyhow, the Times compares the secrecy of opponents of the Palmerston deviation* to the “effrontery''’ of the Mar-ton-Levin agitation. This is how the national deviation agitates the venom of the Times: “The LevinGreatford log-rollers with a case only about half as bad agitated and agitated until the floods came, and

now us 'Soon as tilingshave dried up ami the boats are hidden away in the ranpo they arc going to staid up again. .TJiey rely, not on-secrecy, hut on effrontery, an effrontery which is not deterred by a House of Parliament which yarned in their faces when they tried to get their previous ‘scheme’ introduced by. the back door.”

ABUSE is not argument. Those who are responsible for the agitation to link up the Main Trunk line between Alarton and Levin are actuated by the highest motives. Their attitude towards Palmerston is fair, fn effect they say Palmerston is jusliticd in asking for better railway accommodation, (hat the level crossings along its main thoroughfare are a menace to the public safety; that these defects can he remedied and the noise of rushing trains obviated without putting the country to enormous expense by a purely local deviation. The linking up of the Main Truflk line is a work of national importance, economising haulage, reducing time and distance between Auckland and Wellington, and will relieve the congestion at Palmerston. The editor of the Times, “when in another place,” was a keen advocate of the Marlon-Le-vin railway, hut his residence in Palmerston has warped his views. W,e do not believe that the Minister for Railways and Minister for Public. Works will sanction the Palmerston deviation, despite the Authorisation Bill, as against a work of importance to the whole Dominion. That some improvement will be ear-

ried out at Palmerston is heyond doubt, luvl nut the proposed local deviation.