WANTED-A SQUARE DEAL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 6 January 1931, Page 3

WANTED-A SQUARE DEAL

WHAT IS CINDERELLA GOING TO DO ABOUT IT ?

(To the Editor) Sir.—Now that Christmas and New Year festivities are over, we can turn our attention to matters of paramount importance, and the vital one of what Cinderella is going to do about the recent decision to suspend—in other words to stop —construction on the Kawatiri-Murchison section of the Nelson railway. There is surely something more that can he done than the mere mild protest entered by the recent meeting of the Progress League, or is this the be-all and end-all of Nelson’s resistance and combativeness against the grossest injustice meted out to Nelson since the eighties of last century when the Government of the day brought about the stoppage of our railway construction by its interference with the Midland Railway Company, causing the abandonment of its project at a time when Nelson was assured of connection with the West Coast and the East within a few years.

Now with the promise of the late .Sir Joseph Ward, sanctioned by his Cabinet and by Parliament to complete this line by 1933 we have a North Island United-cum-Reform Acting Prime Minister in collusion with, or in capitulation to Mr Coates and his co-North Island agitators against the Midland railway completion. We have the shocking spectacle of work being stopped once more, at the bidding of the North Island, and tills after helplessly looking on at the expenditure of between ten and twelve million pounds on nearly 300 miles of new railways in the North Island during the Reform regime, and an added sanction of between five and six million more on the recently completed Westfield deviation and new station at Auckland, new railway workshops there and at Wellington. Also the Tawa Flat deviation, reclamations and new station for Wellington, the former now being constructed, and the latter sanctioned. Never in the history of New Zealand has such a glaring one-island political policy been shown and practised as that by the Reform party, and especially during the period of the Coates administration, during which less than five miles of our line was completed. And now with less than another five miles completed work is to be stopped. In view of the early return of the Prime Minister—due to reach New Zealand on the 20th inst —Nelson surely should see to it that the recent decision to perpetrate such a gross injustice on this province is brought before the Prime Minister, and that in view of his promise to the people of Murchison last March, he be asked to have the decision affecting Nelson reconsidered and reversed so that effect may be given to his own, and to the late Sir Joseph Ward’s promises. There are ample grounds on which to base this appeal to the Prime Minister. Even if if should not be wholly upheld, we may at least expect to see the order for stop' page of work cancelled and the work he continued by at least 200 men. We should also secure a promise of a hill complement as soon as ever condition's warrant il. Why not a monster demonstration and deputation from Nelson to see Mr Forbes on 1 iis return?

The glaring injustice of stopping outline while that of the East Coast is tillowed to proceed must he pointed out to Mr Forbes tit the earliest possible moment, and if lie litis a grain of political consistency lie will recognise the gross injustice and remedy the same by either granting the for construction to proceed on the Nelson railway or to stop work on the East Coast and thus see that at least a square deal is given. With the millions spent on railways in the North Island during the past twenty years, and the needless expenditure* and waste of more than a million on the Westfield deviation and new station in Auckland, the North Island should receive no further consideration or railway construction until the return of prosperity to the Dominion. Neither the railways in course of construction in the north, nor that on the East Coast of this island, can produce a tithe of the evidence of their need, nor of resources waiting lor development, compared with those that Nelson can so easily and obviously produce.— 1 am, etc., FOR A SQUARE DEAL. Nelson, i3rd January, 1931.