WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 August 1921, Page 7

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE RAILWAY CUT. A DRASTIC MEASURE. (Specal Correspondent.) Wellington, August 6. The long-threatened railway “cut” is at last announced, and, so far as the South Island is concerned, at any rate, proves to be a very drastic measure. It does not follow that the good people on the other side of Cook Strait are to be unfairly treated in the matter. In the early days of settlement, thirty or forty yeras ago, when the South Island was less sparsely populated than the North, and had the larger productive area, branch railways considerably in advance of the requirements of the districts immediately affected, and intended for development purposes, were constructed there. The drift northward, which set in with the completion of the North Island trunk line, increasing in volume year by year, rapidly; changed the balance of population. Many of the enterprising young men of Canterbury and Otago, instead of pushing out into the backblocks of their own provinces, moved further afield to the wider expanses of the North Island, and so disappointed the . upect&tions of the builders of the branch railways. DIFFERENCES OF OPINION. Whether or not the “cut” is going to help the authorities out of a difficult position is a question on which there is a wide difference of opinion here. The General Manager himself, who, in the absence of Mr. Massey, probably has had a free hand in this matter, admits that fares and freights have been raised to a point at which any further advance would be as likely to result in a decrease as in an increase of revenue. Many business men who have studied the position as closely as they can from the outside, declare that already the high rates are prejudicing the revenue by discouraging travelling and driving additional traffic to the roads. But the official figures show that it is the increased expenditure rather than the stagnant revenue that lies at t’he root of the trouble, and the management, apparently, is ready with no other remedy for this sorry state of affairs than the reduction of services. The long-suffering public must wait and see. ECONOMY CAMPAIGN. Addressing the Wellington Chamber of Commerce yesterday, Mr. J. T. Martin stressed in vigorous language the crying need for greater economy in the public service. He said the surprising feature of the crisis through which the country was passing was the apparent apathy of the Government and its disinclination to seriously and courageously grapple with the position. The excessively high taxation and the enormous Government expenditure were sapping the life blood of the commercial and farming communities, and if not speedily stopped would bring disaster in their train. From these generalities Mr. Martin passed to particular criticism, declaring that the Post and Telegraph Department had utterly miscalculated the effect of its exorbitant charges for telegraph and telephone services, and in spite of largely reduced work was maintaining and increasing its staff. The same with the railways. The good intentions of the management were being defeated by political influence, and the taxpayers were the sufferers. The Mayor, Mr. R. A. Wright, M.P., one of the speakers that followed, while admitting the need for economy, urged caution in its application. It was just the setting Mr. Martin’s remarks required. ARMOUR AGAIN. The correspondence between the Act-ing-Prime Minister and the American Consul-General in regard to the Armour case, published this morning, throws little fresh light upon the ■<’arious questions involved in the dispute. Sir Francis Bell holds firmly to his contention that, after the exchange of the first letters, the dispute entered upon a new phase which necessitated communications between the American Government and the New Zealand Government passing through the recognised diplomatic authorities. The American Consul-Gen-eral thought to overcome the delay inseparable from this time-honored process by writing as a commercial agent and not as a political representative, but the Acting-Prime Minister saw through the little device and insisted upon the observance of the customary constitutional usage. No doubt the position taken up by Sir Francis is fully justified by the facts and the circumstances, but one can wish there had been a more expeditious method of settling a difference between two friendly nations that have everything to gain by the extension of their commercial relations. The American Consul-General has shown himself a very excellent letter-writer, and a perusal of the correspondence does not suggest that he has got any the worse of the argument. Even on matters of fact he is at least as precise as is the Minister.