WELLINGTON NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 289, 15 May 1915, Page 6

WELLINGTON NOTES.

(By Wire.-—Own Correspondent.) Wellington, hast Night. The Baldwin locomotives ordered by the Railway Department from the United States at the end of last year are due to reach Wellington within the next day or two. An imported American expert is waiting to superintend the work of assembling them, and the Department hopes to have them ready for the road within the next few years. The Dominion made a had bargain over these Tocomotives. It will bo remembered that wiien the original order was given a protect was raised against the desl"tch of an important order to a foreign country at a time when the Kmpire was vitally interested in keeping its own workers and factories employe:! The .Minister of Bailways explained that the order was given to the Americans because they were able to guarantee delivery within six or eight weeks, whereas if tiie engines were bought in Great Britain there would be a delay of .five or six months before, they reached the Dominion. The Department wanted the engines in a hurry, and so had passed over the British manufacturers in favor of the American. But the locomotives have not come to hand any quicker than they would have done if they had been built by British workmen and the Dominion's money had gone to maintain the manufactures of the Mother Country, already suffering severe less in con sequence of the war. The official explanation is that the delay was due to trouble regarding shipping facilities, but it is not a particularly comforting one. British people generally a>'e not in a mood for granting favors in a commercial sense to Americans at the present time, and it might fairly be suggested that the. Railway Department °shou'd have considered the shipping problem when giving the order in the first place. Perhaps the authorities will attach a little more importance to patriotic sentiment in the future.