Mr Sheehan on the Railway.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3651, 8 September 1880, Page 2

Mr Sheehan on the Railway.

By a telegram from Wellington we learn that Mr Sheehan's speech on the Bailway ponstruction Bill was a most straightforward and manly defence, and a display of some of the fine tracts in our member's character. Mr Sheehan said-~ I vote against the bill. I am living at Cambridge, and am making my living there, and I daresay by giving this vote I may. lose many personal friends; but I have already made it a rule to follow public, not private interests. In 1869 this country w?is plunged into the depths

of bankruptcy ; there was scarcely a man of standing in the colony at that time who did not feel he was on the verge of ruin ; but the Thames Goldfield broke out and saved the colouy from financial disaster. At that time the Thames was induced to go in for abolition ; and why ? Because the Ministry who were in power promised that a line of railway, which the people of, the Thames wanted, should be made, Let hon. members look back and they will see by the reports, returns, and speeches , iv Hansard and blue books, that the Thames and Waikato railway has always been looked upon as the most important work from 1869 to 1876. When we came into office nothing was done, and then we gave effect to the promises and backed the dishonored bill of our predecessors. In the meantime, on the strength of the promises made and a flying survey they got the Thames people to go in for abolition. But I believe now three* forths of these people if asked, would vote against it, because of these broken promises, and now this Government are going to revoke every promise they themselves were parties to making. I think myself that the Cambridge railway would be a payable one, because it would run throughone pfjths richest - and most populous districts'~: in the colouy; but this is not the point. Look at your goldfields' reports, look at the contributions which the Thames, makes to tho revenue; consider the promises that have been marie and the assurances given by Miuisters of the Crown, andthe support which has been odbtained from the Thames people inconsequence of those promises and assurances, and then say whether the course now proposed is a fair or just one. I say, let the Government give effect to the promises of theirpredecessors. We had a railway Commission enquiry into all these matters during the recess. I have said before, and I repeat now, that the Commission was simply a ''buffer" between Ministers and public opinion. The Commissioners went throughout the country, and brought down a report that had been given effect to so far as it suited Govern* ment, and discarded where it did not suit them. I want to know if any recommendations were good in one case, why they should not be^ good in others; or, if wrong, why does not the Government show that they are wrong. But now the session is about to close —we expect to adjourn tomorrow —and yet at this last 'moment we are told that Government proposes to divert from the t Thames people their fair proportion of the money voted for them in order to complete the line from Hamilton to Cambridge. As I have said before, tbe Hamilton-Cambridge line is a good one, and it will be a payable line, and will open a great tract of country, but at the same time if it is to be constructed at the expense of their neighbors at the Thames I shall vote against it. I have had telegrams from various quarters—from the Thames and from Cambridge—and I have given to all - one reply, and it is this: " I shall vote to the last for my constituents, 'that they may have fair play." I say the people of the Thames will have their line to Waikato. I feel strongly upon this subject, and I cannot help thinking that the Thames people are suffering for the action of myself and my hon. colleague. If we had been fighting upon the side'of the Government, or if we had been neutral, I do not think this would have been given up; but because we cannot support the present Govern* ment, and because we hare fought against them, we find that the Christmas tree of the session is reserved for the supporters of the Government. Naughty boys like myself aod my hon. colleagues are being sent to bed without their supper, while good little children are getting all the prizes and sugar plums. I tell those hon gentlemen that the Thames people will have their railway, even if to make it a party collusion, which may send several gents to this side of the road, and bring about a few broken political limbs, and party heads. When I came into office in 1877, my own friends abused me for not being vindictive enough, but I backed up the previous Ministry and fulfilled their lawful promises, because I held that the credit of the colony should be maintained, and that when the law had been upon the statute book that important work of that kind should be carried out—that the law ought to be abided by. There is my hon friend Sir George Grey, who, of course, is a much bigger man than lam (I am myself a much less luminary.) We hare fought for this line for five or six years, on the strength of promises placed on the Statute Book approved of by the Governor. On the strength of those promises transactions have taken place with a view of selling land, and those promises are now to be broken. It is an act of deliberate repudiation ; and I know perfectly well that although the Hamilton Cam* bridge line will pay, the peqple of Cambridge will object to profit by such an act of repudiation at the expense of their neighbours at the Thames. I believe the time will come, if this bill should pass, when this House will admit that in . depriving the people people of the Thames of their railway, it committed an act of gross, though unintentional, injustice.