THE WAIRARAPA RAILWAY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 47, 16 December 1871, Page 12

THE WAIRARAPA RAILWAY.

People generally are too much in the habit of looking at all public questions merely as they may chance to affect their own personal, local, or party interests. This was the case with the people of Auckland, in former days, with reference to the Seat of Government. This is the case, at the present dav, with the people of Wellington as regards peripatetic parliaments. This is probably the case also with the people of Greytown and Masterton with regard to the proposed line of railway through the Wairarapa. Possibly it is the case also with the few who support as with the many who oppo-e the line laid off by Mr Rochfort. We need not say that this is not the proper way of viewing any public question or colonial project. Such questions or projects should be judged not as they may affect particular persons, parties, interests, or localities, but as they will affect the general welfare. But it'is, perhaps, too much to expect that this will be done by people generally when we find that it is not done by a body of gentlemen who have been thought worthy of the honor of having seats for life in the Legislative Council of the colony. Take up at random any single number of Hansard, and turn to the debates under the heading " Legislative 001111011," and it is ten to one you will be able to detect from the tenor of the speeches made, without noticing by whom they were made, whether the member is an agriculturist or sheepfarmer; a wool-broker or a stock-owner ; a large landowner or a large squatter. This is not as it should be ; nor is it as it would be, if public opinion were more powerful and enlightened. Members then, out of very shame, would foibear publicly arguing public questions, from such narrow premises, and upon such selfish grounds. If, however, our public men view public questions as they affect their own particular interests, from which selfish weakness, or criminal selfishness even the best members of the Upper House are not always exempt, we shall not be. deemed uncharitable if we suspect that the people of Greytown would not have been so demonstrative in favor of a central line of railway through the Wairarapa, if their township had not been so centrally situated. Nor shall we be unjust if we arrive at the conclusion that the people of Masterton would not have shown quite such a friendly desire to co-operate with the people of Greytown if they were not themselves also directly interested in obtaining a diversion in the proposed route. In these respects they are no better, and no worse, than other people. We should, however, be unjust if we made no exceptions in this general charge. We are informed that there are a number of persons who have signed the memorial in favor of the adoption of a more central route through the Wairarapa, who are not directly interested in the decision which maybe arrived at. They advocate a diversion in Mr Koch fort's line exclusively on public grounds. They consider it would be desirable, rn the interests of the colony, and for the welfare of the Wairarapa, that such a diversion should be made, if found practicable;_ and that, to ascertain its practicability, a careful survey shoul be made. Still it must be admitted that, generally speaking, the few who approve, and the many who condemn, Mr Rochfort's line,'do so from interested motives, and without troubling themselves as to how far the course they recommend will prove beneficial to the country at large. There is an old city proverb to the effect, that if every householder swept before his own door the streets would be clean. A school of modern philosophers hold similar views. They maintain it is the duty of every individual to look sharply after his own interests, and that the adoption of such a course must necessarily promote the interests of the whole. But we do not require the inculcation of any such doctrines to make us more selfish than we are already. We would rather inculcate the opposite doctrine. That in the promotion of the aeneral good of the whole community the particular good of each individual of which it is composed would have the best opportunity of being promoted. It is for the general good that the streets should be clean; but there would be little prospect of such a consumption, if left to individual exertion or caprice,

and the community, as a community, neglected its duty in the matter. _We need not, however, be surprised if private persons think they are best promoting the general interest by advocating their own, when philosphers inculcate the doctrine, and our public men reduce it to practice. Public questions, as their name implies, concern the whole public, and however private persons may act, public men and public journalists are bound to look upon them not as they may affect themselves personally, but as they will affect the interests of the community at large. Looking on thequestion from this commanding eminence we have arrived at the couclusion that in this particular instance the local interests of the Wairarapa and the general interests of the colony are not conflicting, but in harmony.