The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 1889. THE HERALD ON THE TIMETABLE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1900, 4 June 1889, Page 2

The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 1889. THE HERALD ON THE TIMETABLE.

Owe good effect which Mr Rhodes’s speech produced was to awaken out of its lethargy our somnolent friend, the Timaru Herald, concerning the railway time-table. We can understand the difficulties in the way of the Herald dealing with the matter. The Herald’s articles are chiefly written with a pair of scissors. The man at the wheel there can wield a pair of scissors with any man born in this or any other universe, but nothing had hitherto been written on the subject of the time-table, and so there was nothing to wield the scissors at. Mr Rhodes’s speech supplied the needful, and hence the lugubrious, laborious, and learned (?) article on the subject. The poor Herald! we pity it, and if pity is akin to love, wo must be nearly in love with it. But evidently it is not in love with us. Mr Rhodes was kind enough to compliment this paper on the manner in which it had dealt with the railway time-table, and the Herald took very good care to cut out of the speech everything referring to us. Young in his epistle to Pope says that “ With fame, in jagt proportion, envy grows. ’’ and we have no doubt it was envy made the Timaru Herald suppress the compliment paid to us by Mr Rhodes. However, “ Fools may our scorn, not onyy, raise, For aavy is a kind of praise.” We shall accept it as such, and still continue to pity our drowsy contemporary because of its helpless stupidity and brainlessness. We are glad to have its assistance to right the great wrong that has been don® to the people, not only of this district but of the whole colony. We have shown in a previous article that the working expenses of the railways had been increased by 16| per cent., but evidently that is not all. We have been informed by a gentleman who travels frequently along the line that at one place down south there is a train which travels only fifty miles per day, that is, about two hours’ work, and there is on this train an engine-driver, a fireman, and a guard, and all they have to do is this couple of hours work. That is management worthy of the Surveyor-General and his chainmen. Was there ever such a muddle ? The change has given satisfaction to no one, even the commercial travellers are as much disgusted as other people, and we are informed that a large number of them have sent a joint request to the Commissioners to revert back to the old time- table. Travellers to Christchurch or Dunedin feel disgusted at reaching these cities too late to go to the theatre or anywhere else; hotel-keepers in these cities have been put to great expense and inconvenience in having to keep gas lighted, fires burning, and servants waiting to attend on any travellers who may arrive by these trains. Thus everybody everywhere is thoroughly dissatisfied and disgusted with the change. We are glad that we have shamed the Commissioners into stopping at Orari, and that henceforward mails will be despatched from Geraldine by the express. If the Commissioners would take our advice on the whole matter too they would at once revert to the status quo ante before it is too late, for so sure as they are three living menif they obstinately persist in defying public opinion Parliament will extinguish them altogether. They have great power; the Act under which they work makes them comparatively independent, but Parliament is above the law and above the Commissioners, and they are fools if they undertake to defy it. Parliament, let them remember, is only the reflex of public opinion, and if public opinion condemns the Commissioners Parliament must do so. In defying public opinion they defy Parliament, and if they do that their doom is sealed. If Parliament abolishes the Board of Commissioners the three gentlemen who constitute it may as well pack up their traps at once; they will never again be employed on the railways. They have therefore nothing to lose and a great deal to gain by studying public opinion, and the best way they can do it is by reverting back to the old timetable.

LABORERS’ HOMES. Me Rhodes when addressing his constituents recently forgot one very important matter. In his election speech Mr Rhodes said, in reply to a question, that he would settle working men on good land, near a place where they could get work. That was the promise Mr Ehodes made to his constituents in his election speech, but he has taken good care to vote against the possibility of such a thing being done. Last session, at the urgent request of the Canterbury members, Sir Harry Atkinson placed £IO,OOO on the estimates, for the purpose of settling agricultural laborers on the land in districts where there was no Crown lands for sale. This was lost by one vote, and that vote was given by Mr Rhodes. Thus if Mr Ehodes had not been elected to Parliament, £IO,OOO would have been | spent in Canterbury this year in j settling working men in homes of | their own on the laud, but Mr Rhodes ! voted against it, and it was lost by that one vote. This is how Mr Rhodes tried to settle working men

on land near where they could get work. It is now six years since this proposal was published in this paper, and on the following year it was introduced into Parliament by Sir Julius Vogel. Mr Rolleston, who poses as intensely anxious to settle people on the land, was then in Parliament, and voted against it, with the result that it was rejected. Nothing was heard of it again until last year, when Major Steward, of Ashburton, introduced the subject by proposing that £79,000 of the loan, which remained unallocated, should be set aside for the purpose of settling people on the land. Subsequently Major Steward withdrew his motion on Sir Harry Atkinson promising to set £IO,OOO aside for that purpose, and when the matter came up it was lost by one vote. Evidently working men do not want to be settled on the land, for not one of them has shown any interest in it. They allowed Mr Rhodes to come and go without even asking him a question on the subject, they cheered him with a unanimous vote of confidence, and showed no disappointment whatsoever in regard to the fact that Lis vote prevented such settlement. That being so we presume the working men do not want any such thing, and that we have been altogether wrong in advocating such a scheme. If the working men wanted any such scheme we presume they would have made the fact known to Mr Rhodes. Sir Harry Atkinson has premised to bring the matter forward again next session, but really it cannot be encouraging to him to know that the very people in whose interest it is introduced care nothing about it. At any rate we must conclude that Mr Rhodes was perfectly right in voting against it, when his conduct has met with the hearty approval of his constituents.

THE SURPLUS. Me Rhodes stated that this year there would be a surplus of £70,000, The semi-official statements, published in the Government organs, state that the surplus is £66,000, but really this is not a surplus. Mr Rhodes told his constituents that a primage duty of one per cent had been put on for the special purpose of paying off a deficiency of £128,000, and the money collected in this way is included in the surplus. JNTow, why should the primage duty, which has been collected for a special purpose, be regarded as a part of the revenue, and treated as a surplus? If Sir Harry Atkinson pays off the £58,000 deficiency with the primage duty, where will the surplus be ? The surplus, which Mr Rhodes sets down at £70,000, thus dwindles down to £BOOO. It is nothing short of financial jugglery to set the primage duty down as a part of the revenue and claim it as surplus, for it is nothing of the kind. It is a special tax for a special purpose, and ought not to have any connection with the revenue whatever. Sir Harry Atkinson will have a surplus of £BOOO, after paying the £58,000 deficit of last year, and no more. We presume he will pay that deficit off, instead of funding it, so that he will have only £BOOO to begin the next year with. That will give him no opportunity of taking off any taxation, so there is no hope of the burden of the people being lessened. In our opinion there is a screw loose somewhere. We are told that retrenchment to the tuna of £230,000 has been effected, but what have we gained by it? The taxation has been increased beyond the wildest dreams of any previous Ministry, and yet the Treasurer can hardly make both ends meet. This looks as if there was something wrong somewhere, and leads us to conclude that the retrenchment is more imaginary than real.