DEMAND FOR A SQUARE DEAL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 13 January 1931, Page 8

DEMAND FOR A SQUARE DEAL

To the Editor) Sir, —The recent panicky, unwarrant; ed action of the Acting-Prime Minister and a handful of his colleagues, in throwing a bombshell into our province by decreeing the stoppage of work on our railway construction, (appears to be rousing the people from one end of the province to the other to a pitch rarely seen during the last half century, as indicated by the Provincial Progress League having already called together two special meetings and passed resolutions of condemnation of the Government’s action. Even Nelson’s illustrious parliamentary representative, although a member of the Cabinet, would appear to have been ignored and the drastic action taken that so vitally affects his constituency during his absence, which adds to the objectionable nature of the hasty decision to do injustice to the province without an inkling of information of any such intention. It is, however, a most encouraging sign that the Mayor of the city and the chairmen of the Waiinea and Murchison County Councils, have already led these public bodies in expressing their strong resentment and indignant protests against the stoppage of work on the Midland railway, and arc urging carrying the matter forward, in the form of a monster deputation to interview the Prime Minister, on his return, along with the Ministers concerned in the decreeing of this stoppage of a work of national economic importance.

The action of stopping this national work, and allowing that of the East Coast line to proceed is too glaring a purely political stunt, in that the latter’s chief claim is that it passes through the Prime Minister’s district. This cannot and must not be allowed to go through without being strongly challenged and exposed by all who want a square deal. Whatever may be the merits or demerits of the East Coast line, Nelson has supported its completion, on the understanding that the Midland line would receive the same privilege of proceeding to completion, in accord with the definite promises and repeated assurances of the late Sir Joseph Ward, sanctioned by the Cabinet, and by a majority of Parliament, and which the lion. Mr Atmore, just prior to the close of hist session, declared on the floor of the House “that nothing had transpired to warrant any interference with these decisions,” and the pledges given to speedily complete this railway line of such national importance, What lias transpired since, in the form of an ever-growing army of unemployed, has made the continuance of work on this line, and a great acceleration of its construction more imperative than ever, in order to absorb some portion of the unemployed, and to open up the richest area of country in the Dominion for the development of its vast resources, which includes thousands of acres of Crown lands, that are lying idle and useless for want of linking up this line, that would give direct railway communication to all the markets and ports of the South Island. The assertions of Mr Ransom “that the lines are only having work on them suspended and not abandoned,” in one breath, and in the next, that work will not be resumed on them till they can fulfil certain conditions, that none of the lines being allowed to go on have even a shadow of chance to fulfil, shows an inconsistency that he will need to explain away, and is simply political equivocation. We are also told that the men put off these railway works are to be transferred to some problematical land development scheme —in the North Island we may assume—but what will land development schemes be worth without the railways for transport, and what need is there to transfer men from railways, when there is already almost into the tens of thousands of unemployed wanting and starving for work. There are already thousands of .acres of Crown land in valleys converging on the Midland railway route, that would quickly be developed by linking up this railway with the rest of the Island, and this is but one of a score of primary and secondary industries that the completion of linking up this short gap would, with Government-inspired capital, quickly begin to be developed, but because they are not in the Prime Mininster’s, or acting-Prime Minister’s districts, but happen to be m the politically starved Cinderella province of Nelson, these potential industries and potential providers of work that could do so much to solve the unemployed problem on sound lines of productivity, must be ignored. If we could plant the Nelson province in the middle or even the far north of the North Island, there would be a mad rush to complete its railway, and to exploit its vast resources which in vastness and variety are not equalled by any other combinations of provinces in this Dominion.

Nelson has an unanswerable case for its railway, far greater and stronger than there is for any of the lines that have won the political favour of being proceeded with, and its case should be promptly placed before Prime Minister Forbes, as soon after he steps ashore on his return from London as it is possible to arrange. lie has at least the virtue of being a South Islander, and the reputation of being a sagacious, far-seeing, and square-dealing statesman, and as such could surely be relied on to see the glaring injustice of stopping work on the Midland line, which so recently as last March, he said “would bo proceeded with by an increased number of men.” He, at least, is surely not so satiated with political partiality and preferences as to confirm this stoppage, and concur in the proceeding with the East Coast line. If so, it will bo but one more black betrayal, broken promise, and inconsistency so common in the history of politicians and statesmen, but of which we will not believe Mr Forbes guilty until found so by the test of confirming tho stoppage of the Midland line construction.—! am, etc., FOR A SQUARE DEAL. Nelson, 10th January.