The Oamaru Mail TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1880.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 7 September 1880, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1880.

The action of tlie Government towards the railway employes and civil servants lias created a feeling against them that will not be easily dispelled. When the next election copies round, they -will, if we are not greatly mistaken, be deprived of the power of again -working such injustice. It is not generally known that a member in liis place in Parliament ventured to express an opinion that railway employes should be deprived of the power of voting at elections for members of Parliament. This idea, "which was pi'obably the outcome of a conviction on the part of the Government that they had incurred grave unpopularity amongst this class, was thrown, out as a feeler, and when the House, staggered by the sweepin" nature of such a proposal, treated it °with death-like silence, the matter was allowed to drop. The meetings that have lately been held portend a revulsion "of feeling that no set of men—whether politicians or not conld view undisturbed. It will not avail the Government to urge that they are not answerable for the induction of the employes' salaries. Not relishing responsibility which legitimately appertains to a Ministry and which is proudly accepted by a self-reliant administration, the Government delegated the most important of its functions to Commissions. These reported, and those of their recommendations which fitted in with a policy temporising, vacillating, and uncertain in the extreme, were accepted—the rest were treated with a confccmptuousness that should have alienated for ever from the rejecters those who at tlicii 7 instance had undertaken so much trouble and responsibility. There was a suggestion, however, which was in strict harmony with the predilections of the Government, and that was that which referred to Mr. Armstrong. A charge

was trumped up against him, based on . the most flimsy evidence, and, lest the [ weakness of tliis charge should . jeopardise the carrying out of tjieii recommendations, the Commission added the information that Mr. Armstrong had not been trained in the orthodox manner as a mechanical engineer. It was nothing to them that Mr. Armstrong had spent the best part of his lifetime in ' the service of the department, and > had given perfect satisfaction until this investigation by an incompetent •tribunal ended in the discovery of an hypothesis upon which was based a superstructure so weighty that the whole fabric toppled over. Mr. Arm- . strong, say they, made a mess of the railway waggons, and is not an ,ae- ' credited engineer; he is not an accredited engineer, and therefore he made a mess of the railway waggons. It is discovered that Mr. Armstrong is i not blameable for the unfaithfulness with which the condemned waggons were put together, and moreover that he graduated in good engineering schools, even if he does possess the drawback of having previously been a common carpenter. Yet, notwithstanding the Parliamentary assertions of Mr. Oliver to the contrary, Mr. Armstrong lias never had an opportunity of rebutting the groundless charges brought against him by the Commission. He said so on Friday night last on the occasion of the presentation to him; and we, after our experience of the Minister for Public Works, would rather believe the deposed Locomotive Superintendent than that gentleman. It must have coated the pill with sugar when he heard the Commissioner's eulogies and expressions of regret at the severance of his connection with the railway department. The Commissioner added that "he felt more than he could express, and that during the six years Mr, Armstrong had been in the railway department, a more faithful, persevering, hard-working man he had never met. He was sure that his heart had always been in his work. He had been one of the first when i-e----quirement needed it to come to the front, and to do all that was necessary in the execution of bis important ajid onerous duties. His (Mr. Conyers') great regret was that they were called upon to show to him such kindly feeling. This is generous testimony from the chief of the department of the Middle Island, if not of the Colony,

more especially as at this moment detractors are insidiously at work to ruin the prospects of the Commissioner himself, and to deprive him of bis position. The wrong that has been done to Mr. Armstrong in not allowing a full investigation into tlie matter that has been used as a means to thrust him from his post will not easily be forgotten. It will ever cling to the Hall party and their sympathisers.