PROTEST MEETING AT LEVIN.
CURTAILMENT OF RAILWAY SERVICE DISCUSSED The Prime Afinister (Hon. J. G. Coates), attended a crowded meeting held at Levin last night to protest against the Railway Department’s- action in excluding Levin from the list of stopping places for express trains, a privilege it has enjoyed for the past twenty years. The ATayors of Levin and Foxton, the Chamber of Commerce and local bodies representatives put their views before Mr. Coates, asserting that no other town of the same size in the Dominion was being so unjustly ! rented and that the country people were being penalised in the interests of through passengers. Air. Coates said there were plenty of places larger than Levin which
v. ere off the express services. A voice: We are large enough to bump your man out, anyhow! Air. Coates (warmly) : If ever I’m found allowing political considerations to influence me in my actions for the good of the country as a whole you can bump him out —and me, too! The Department was out to consider the interests of the people as a whole and the expresses were primarily for Hawke’s Bay and Taranaki. He offered to allow one up express, the Napier, to stop at Levin, also to speed up the evening train to Wellington. He also thought the mail services, which had been interferred with by the “cut,” could be improved. Although he was not now connected with the Postal Department, he thought they could do a good deal better with the mails along this coast than they were doing In replying to a suggestion that expresses could be speeded up to enable a local stop, the Minister said lie felt desparately nervous about asking the Department to exceed the safety factor agreed on by the departmental experts. It only wanted one big accident to happen and the railways would be pinned down to a certain mileage per hour. He felt a personal responsibility in the matter.
“Please don't bring in tbe political stunt,” said the Minister to another interjectin', who suggested resort to political action. “It is not worth twopence as far as I am concerned. It makes my blood boil to think that anybody else should think such arguments can weigh with a Alinistcr or a Railway Board.” (Applause).
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MH19250611.2.8
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2895, 11 June 1925, Page 2
Word count
Tapeke kupu
381PROTEST MEETING AT LEVIN. Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2895, 11 June 1925, Page 2
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Manawatu Herald. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.