The Canterbury Press on the Thames Railway.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3458, 24 January 1880, Page 2

The Canterbury Press on the Thames Railway.

Chbistchubch, Thursday. -

The Press is very severe and bounceable about the Thames Valley Railway, ia a long leader to-day, in which the following occurs : —" Mr Sheehan's silly boast that it is illegal, not to say fraudulent, as the construction of the Grahamstown Eailway was, no Ministry would dare to stop it, Las proved idle. Indeed, the converse of the statement would be nearer the truth. In the present state of the finance no Ministry would dare to go on with such a flagrant job. There are many political railways in the colony, the further extension of which looks very like throwing good money after bad, but not one of them is so utterly hopeless of profit or usefulness as this. If the railway were completed from Grahamstown to Te Aroha to-morrow, it would serve no better purpose than to compete with the water carriage of the Thames lliver alongside of it; but there are a variety of obstacles to prevent it being completed, and some of these obstacles are practically insuperable. The main one is the native difficulty, which absolutely bars the way to the construction of this line. That seems to be quite the view taken of it by Mr Whitaker,

whose answer to the Thames deputation is really very charming. He did not tell them that the Government would see them all hanged before they would make another yard of their scandalous railway, because that would have been rude, at all events unnecessarily candid. No; he left them in darkness as to his own opinion of the railway, but he gave good and sufficient reason why he could not promise them what I hey asked. He said he was only an ordinary Minister; merely a poor, humble Attorney-General in fact, and that if they wanted a really powerful friend, they had better make love to the Minister for Public Works. t There was another and still more delicate reason, too, why Mr Whitaker was diffident about the Grabamstown railway, as he was personally interested in the line, and therefore had abstained from interfering. O, ye gods! What a treasure is a ready wit backed by a cold nerve! He was personally interested, and therefore he abstained from interfering. The deputation must have been mortified, not so much by bis laughing j at them, as by his taking no pains to I conceal his laughter. His interest, we believe, consists in the nominal ownership of an ancient land claim which he has never seen, and which has always been occupied by natives of a | sullen disposition ; and there could hardly^ | have been a more scorching satire on tiftf^ whole character of the project than that * | modest reminder that be was personally interested in the line. Mr Whitaker then went on to point out the difficulties that lay in the way of the extension of th« railway, mentioning"particular/ the obstinacy of the chief Tuku kino, who will not allow any survey of his territory. Here, however, the Mayor, by way of making things pleasant, wo suppose, ventured a remarkable suggestion. He let the cat out of the bag—head, tail, claws, and all. He said the people would like the construction of the line to Puriri, eight miles from Grahamstown, as it was commenced. Bash man! He should have held his tongue if he could not say anything wiser than that. Why, the main objection from the commencement of the railway has been that it is" the same as the Waikato Railway; that it is only intended lor a suburban railway for the town of Grahamstown, and that the pre. tonce of carrying it on to Te Aroha is only kept up as an excuse for the enormous expenditure required at the Grahamstown end.-—Herald.