THE BATTLESHIP’S VISIT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 92, 25 April 1913, Page 4

THE BATTLESHIP’S VISIT.

li is io ho hoped iluit the Railway Department will make no its mind early with regard to the excursion to the Port, on the occasion of the forthcoming visit of H.M.S. Now Zealand, and that plenty of notice will be given when such arrangements are completed. Of late outside the cities (where cue may notice that many columns of railway time-table, not infrequently duplicated and even triplicated, appear in the advertising columns of the papers published in the large centres) very meagre announcements, giving the scantiest information, are

sent for publication in the columns of the provincial press. Economy is well enough in its way, hut it should not he altogether one-sided, and the country people are surely entitled to a little more consideration than has been given them in recent times. In connection with the visit of New Zealand's big battleship, it is more than likely that about half the population of Taranaki will desire to travel to and from the Port, and if the Department, as we understand it has done, finds it necessary to intimate that the ordinary annual school excursion from centres such as Stratford are getting too big, it will easily be seen 1 ' that the train service will be quite fully taxed on .June 17th. It has been suggested that the Railway Department might issue stop-over tickets from, say, June 14th, available for the return journey up to June 18th or 19th. This would undoubtedly relieve the great pressure of passenger traffic that must occur on the day of the warship’s visit to New Plymouth. Tiro occasion will he a great one for Taranaki, and if it is to he a thorough success, much responsibility will lie with the Railway Department, the management of which will ho called upon to put forth a special effort. However, that is the Department’s affair, lint the people of this district have at least the right to ask that they may be informed—and reasonably fully informed—as early as possible what the train arrangements will he.