CORRESPONDENCE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 278, 21 November 1914, Page 7

CORRESPONDENCE.

[To The Editor Stratford Tost.] Sir, — in your Issue of Tuesday you publish a. letter signed “F. I. Jackson,”. in which the writer urges the electors to vote for the Massey Government at the coming elections, because Sir Joseph Ward had too many Southern members in his Cabinet, and they misgoverned amd plundered the North Island. Also, because he commenced the construction of the Christchurch-West Coast railway with the costly Otira tunnel. Now, Mr Jackson admits the prosperity of the North Island. He says the valuation exceeds the South by ■ighty-four million sterling. The population exceeds the South by t\yo hundred and seven■thousand. The North has forty-five members to the Southern thirty-five. Mr Jackson makes all this constitute a great grievance, and entreats North Island electors not to vote for Ward for fear he might do it again. But perhaps Mr Jackson is a joker? Then he condemns Sir Joseph. Ward for the Otira tunnel. Now, I read in'your paper a few days ago that Mr Massey said in Parliament that ho had been twice to the West Coast, and that the second visit only confirmed the opinion he had formed on the first, and that was that the resources of the West Coast were enormous, and he didn’t think the railway would be' able to cope with the immense traffic with which it would have to deal. And yet Mr Jackson, in his letter, alludes to this railway as the “crowning act of wilful extravagance.” Now, it must he one of two things: Either.Mr Massey didn’t know what he was talking about, or Mr Jackson didn’t know what he was writing about! Or (horrible thought) perhaps Mr Massey is a joker!—l am, etc., T). MAXWELL. Toko, November 20th.