THE RAILWAY QUESTION. THE BUTCHERS' QUESTION.

Southland Times, Issue 688, 26 June 1867, Page 2

THE RAILWAY QUESTION.

THE BUTCHERS' QUESTION.

(TO THB EDITOB O3f?,THE SOTTTHIiA.NI> TIMES). Sib, — lam going to" ask of you' such a favor as I fear, from your presa of correspondence, you will find a difficulty in granting. It is to insert a reply to a letter in' the Southland News of Saturday, the.lsth inst., signed " Vetus." The letter is written ,so unmethodically, and what should have been argument (and which the author perhaps considered such) bo mixed up with vituperation, insinuation, vague general charges, and surmises, that it would require a clearer head than mine to classify its statements in such a manner as to deal with them shortly. I feel obliged, therefore — no pleasant task — to wade through the whole, paragraph by paragraph, and comment upon each in its ; turn, regardless of logical sequence. To do this I must quote nearly the whole of the letter, which will swell my own to an unconsiderable bulk, and this it is that makes me diffident in asking you to insert it. But if it Is too lengthy for your colums, or if you think it is too lengthy for your readers, do not hesitate to consign it to the waste paper basket. You may naturally ask why, if " Vetus' " letter is such as I describe, I consider it wortTi answering ? Ido not. But so much trash has crept into both papers, through their correspondents, and so much unreasoning abuse has (through ignorance of the truth, it is to be hoped) been heaped upon the late Executive, that the general public, which depends almost exclusively on the press for its information on political matters, must be puzzled to understand how so iniquitous a Government could have been suffered to exist for a day ; and although, with the reflective part of the public, the excessive abuse and exaggeration of statement will, like an overdose of arsenic given to a dog, prove its own antidote ; yet with many others, as experience proves, somo of the dirt kicked up, by even so inconsequent a writer as "Vetus," is sure to stick ; and as he has repeated in his epistle most of the blundering jmigstatements of his forerunners, and accompanied them with much childish abuse ef his own, I have selected it for reply in preference to any less comprehensive document. He is a type of a class of writers who have long disgraced the correspondence columns of the New Zealand press. If a common laborer, or any other merely illiterate man, laboriously and blunderingly attempts, through all the perplexities of Lindlay Murray, to give utterance to the ideas that are in him, in the honest and earnest belief that if he can convey his thoughts to hia neighbors it will benefit them and him ; though he commit as great atrocities in composition as "Vetus" (greater would be hardly possible), no man of good taste, no gentleman would think of commenting on them, but would honor him for his good intentions, and I for one should take off my hat to him with sincere respect. But when men like " Vetu3 " and his compiers (let us hope there are not many such) in pestering the public with their crude, hazy, and ungrammatical effusions, embody in them fishwife accusations vague general insinuations, whicn they have not the courage to specify for fear of the consequences, and above all, implied charges of dishonest transactions and purposes, which, if true, would add blackness to the character of a convict, and does all this under the shelter of a feigned name ; they become not alone fair subjects for criticism, but nuisances and pests, ancT deserve no quarter. I have taken the liberty, of italicising some words and sentences here and there in the quotations, to indicate more shortly to what parts of a paragraph my remarks more particularly refer. Thus " Vetus " begins : — " Congratulation must be the order of the day with all who have the intererests of the province at heart. The Blacklock Ministry have been defeated, and one step made in the right direction." Here is a Te Deum that might have suited Trafalgar over a very bloodless victory, (?) the enemy having in the two previous sessions offered to surrender, nay, almost begged to be allowed to do so, but they could get nobody the Council could trust to take over the fortress. Again : — " Who that has any interest in the province would not rejoice at it 3 escape from a precipice, the depths of which are unfathomable ? " Brave words, no doubt, but rather obscure, as the writer omits to indicate the particular precipice, from the unfathomable depths of which we have escaped, and like other fine writers, leaves here and elsewhere, a good deal to the imagination. " The question on which the Q-overnment was defeated is one of the greatest magnitude the province could grapple with— in fact it is life or death." One of the strangest defeats certainly on record, where the victorious party, (whether intentionally or only by a blunder, it is not for me say) embodied in their amendment, all that the late Executive asked for; only requiring a further expenditure on surveys, which until what they have asked was granted, was unnecessary. If (as " Vetus' " exuberant glorification would warrant one in believing) the effect of the amendment had been to reject the late Government's policy, instead of only the form of their resolutions, it would then have remained for the residents of the Province to determine whether the rejection of the expenditure of so much money which would permanently open up the interior, and create an outlet for the surplus produce of the settlers, were a thing to be thankful for. " Men who did take a comprehensive view of the subject, and stretched out their hand to save the Province from the abyss in which it was all but precipitated ; men whose views are as exalted above the thoughtless critics who have found fault with them as light is from darkness." The writer has here manifestly lost himself in a maze. Who are the men who stretched out their hands ? &c, &c. The men who were blaokballed ? And what is their connection with the former part of the sentence ? After much reflection I must trust to some future CEdipus to unravel the mystery j for this and the rest of the paragraph are alike beyond me, and closely allied to what poor Calton described aa : "Huge, burly language, words too big for rhyme, And windy mouthings of the false sublime j Where in the dark his misty meaning gropes, Half smothered in a tympany of tropeß." But here am I criticising the writer's diction, which I had no intention of doing, and which is nothing to my present; purpose of correcting his other errors and reprobating bis qoarse abuse. Who « Yetiw" U I have not the least idea, tat if lie Qann.ot write, intelligibly fee shpuJd »Qt venture into jwint, oj? hj> get; $om.ebedv ty ?§TI8« hi» m^uaoifliitii ««i£ if iia ''tajkn $s|io.n>t<£^ mi |n^?» |hjj 4^Mh $| Wsk !4 f&f&fl

— — — _ I - ■—^ \ simple, abide the consequence, unless he disarma criticism by declaring his identity. " Let us examine the question dispassionately in all its bearings. In the first place the manner in -which, the Government, went about the affair was censurable in the extreme." ■"' Here " Vetus " commences his " dispassionate examination" very logically, by pronouncing judgment. "A correspondence is carried on with the Colonial Secretary, and the Colonial Government is persuaded to sanction 210,000 acres of land for railways, provided the Provincial Government approves of the scheme. I call this doing things in an underhand way, and putting the bart before the horse." It seems to me that this fim step, instead of being " censurable in the extreme," or "putting the cart before the horse," was laudable in the extreme, and putting the horse between the shafts. If we have no money of our own available for the purpose, it is manifestly the duty of the Government to provide some means of payment before entering on such a work, as nearly iifly miles of railway. " What there is of underhand in so obvious a proceeding, I am at a loss to understand, for how, in the name of common sense could this object be attained, except by correspondence with the General Government ?" " The Council shoutd surely have been consulted first, as they knew the wants of the Province best." If the reporters are to be believed, the majority of the members did not manifest the knowledge imputed to them. " The second step was equally underhand. A resolution was brought before the Council purporting to be merely a formal affair, and if it had not been for the sharpsightness of the Council it; would have been passed as such, and this mere matter of form would have placed 210,000 acres of land at the disposal of the then Government, with the formal proviso that it was to be spent on railways." I am sorry to be obliged to use strong lan- | guage ; but if " Vetus " will assert as a fact what he has either not inquired into, or not had the faculty to comprehend ; or if he makes the assertion in mere unreasoning wontoness, he forfeits the right to be angry when I assert that this statementis simply untrue. The "second step "was not " underhand," for by it the Executive asked the Council openly and plainly enough Burely whether it would by its vote accept from the * Governor the means of constructing certain railway works, if they were placed by His Excellency at its disposal. And it is not true that the land being granted it ''would have been at the disposal of the then Provincial Government with the formal proviso that it was to be spent on railways." The particular works were, named in the resolution, and the Government could not use the land, for constructing any other, (nor, for that matter could the Council either) and the passing of it would not have enabled the Government to take one single further step without the Council's sanction; for, the land having been granted, the Government would then have had to a9k the Council to vote the necessary funds to pay for making the requisite surveys, and for providing plans and specifications. These preliminary step 3 having been taken, the Government would then have had to draw up contracts, which would have had to be submitted to the Attorney-General for his approval. The Council would next have had to pass an Appropriation Ordinance to enable the Government to purchase the land through which the lines were to pass. Then, and not till then, the Government might have advortiaod for tenders, fbr till then, there could be nothing to tender for. Both the draft of contract and the tenders to be accepted would have had to be sanctioned by the Council. As the works progressed, not a single acre of land or a penny of money could have been parted with without the joint certificate of the superintending Engineer, and of one appointed by the General Government. Moreorer than this, a Bill ■ was actually drafted and laid on the table to provide for the direction of all these several steps, not by the Executive Government, but by a Board of Commissioners, to be appointed jointly by the General and Provincial Executives, and the Provincial Council. I think I have now shown that in the wonderful mare's nest which " Vetus " and others have discovered, there was neither anything " underhand," nor any arbitrary power contemplated or' possible to be exercised by the Provincial Executive. And if they were in reality, the unscrupulous rascals that " Vettfs " and others make them out to be, they muat at the same time have been such exceedingly clever rogues, thst if, despite all these provisions and checks, they could have managed as "Vetus" insinuates, to make their own ends out of the transaction, why, I for one should have felt such admiration for the sublimity of their talent that I could hardly have found in my heart to begrudge them their illgotten gains. All this " Vetus " might h»ve learnt from the correspondence laid on the Council table, and I from the explanations given by the late Executive if he had taken the trouble to read the one, and listen to the other, as it was assuredly his duty to do before casting such aspersions on men of whose motives he can know nothing, and who are, every one of them, incapable of entertaining even a thought of such dirty tricks as " Vetus " gives them credit for. " This action, coupled with all the late questionable transactions of the Blacklock Ministry prevented any more blind confidence being placed in them, and defeat was the result." As " Vetus " has, in common with the other discoverers of mare's nests, systematically shirked all direct charges, and omitted to state what the " late questionable transactions of the Blacklook Ministry " are, and what the " blind confidence " is that they asked for, nothing can be said about the matter, and the public must just take his " dark sayings " for what they are worth. " I may notice that this underhand way of doing business is becoming quite an institution, and has been the means of defeating all past attempts at provincial retrenchment." " Underhand" again ; but again no instances of it given. It does not seem to occur- to thia writer that " retrenchment" is solely the affair of the Council; and it exercised this function bo trenchantly, that at its last session, and under the new Executive, it found it expedient to undo a good deal of its former cuttings«down, performed at the previous one. " This eohool-boy manner of conducting publio affaire may lead to abuses little dreamt of, and and cannot bo condemned in too strong language. As " Vetus" exemplfles ! " How was it that the committee appointed to enquire into, this affair did not make their dwi« slon on the subject public P It ia a matter of grea.fc public importance, Thia §oh.oo>boy fcgfc, Jation. (jfeQT^ p gjmaunfc <xf Jrabejollite cotttempto ■•#ift'V-\S«i "fiMh 9^ « fpg %m\%n\

Because it is not the Committee's business to " publish," but- only to report to the Council,, who-ean-cause the Teports to be printedTif expedient. ' « Some persons at fever, heat about railways •who have thrown their judgment overboard, mil Bay—' Did not Mr Blacklock offer to resign if his measure Vaa passed ?' This only shows that he was exceedinglg anxious to get the measure passed— nothing more. All adventurers in the Province desire the same thing; but those who have thought of mating a home in the Province have interests quite opposed to this system of squandering.' " v The lo<ncal sequence of this sentence is — that all the members of the Provincial Council are "adventurers ;" for they have pledged themselves to a man to support the measure, merely varying the wording of the resolution as passed, without altering its purport. But alas for the Council, if what " "Vetus " asserts be true, that " those who have thought of making a home in the Province have interests quite opposed to this system of sqv<mderi?ig" which, gramatically, can only mean the " measure" aforesaid. (To be continued.)