THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1907. TO PREVENT RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8443, 16 May 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1907. TO PREVENT RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.

Thebitter comments and the saddening statistics published in America during the last year about the in-, crease in railway fatalities liave stimulated the search for a remedy/ The figures show that the most fre-. quent cause of the most ; distressing catastrophies has been the breaking of rails. in some rails, even of a most perfect manufacture, have not been detected until too late. Necessity has given birth to invention. What is picturesquely termed an "electric eye" has been contrived. The device consists of an electrical connection between every rail within a; block of a line. If there is any defect in any rail the flash will be transmitted to a signal tower, and no train can enter the block until the fault has been located and remedied. This device is to be introduced at once upon all the principal railways in the United States. An agreeable consequence to the public, which it is hoped is, not incidental and temporary, of the anti-corporation feeling in the United States is a sudden access of politeness toward passengers among the guards and other servants of the tramways in the principal American cities. It has been )i tradition of urban life in America that the local traveller must endure meekly arrogance and insult at every step. The' officials of a number of large transit corporations have now issued instructions to their employees that hereafter their patrons are to be treated with a reasonable degree of politeness. In view of the traditional hurry of business life in the United States, it is hailed as a remarkable phenomenon that a petition signed by

some of the leading financiers and professional men, of Chicago and New York has been addressed to "the presidents of the New York Central and the Pennsylvania Railways, asking them to discontinue the phenomenally rapid passenger trains between those cities. The petition requests that the running time of the limited trains be increased from eighteen hours to twenty hours. This is another evidence of the impression made upon the public mind by recent accidents.

THE NEW PLYMOUTH ELECTION.

The Wellington morning paper de-) scribes Mr Okey, the successful candidate at the New Plymouth election, held on Tuesday last, as "a minority representative," but had the Government candidate been returned we should have read a very different version of the affair. As a matter of fact Mr Okey polled 364 more votes than the Government candidate, while Mr Malone, who certainly could not be regarded as a supporter of the Government, polled only 1,010 votes. The New Zealand Times j bases its assertion upon the , fact j that Mr Malone declared he was a Liberal, but then all the candidates i swore that - they were Liberals. Had either Mr Malone or Mr Dockrill retired from the contest in the other's favour we do not believe that the result would have been different to what it was. Then there was nothing in the voting to lead one to suppose that the Government supporters are in a majority in the ' New Plymouth electorate, in fact the position seems to be quite the reverse when one considers the frantic Ministerial efforts made to secure the Government candidate's return. The Minister for Lands spoke recently at New Plymouth, the Minister for Labour also lately paid a call at that town, and the Native Minister appears to have lived in the electorate for some time past, while Mr W.- T. Jennings, M.H.R., also took a hand, but all without avail. The question of whether or not the Government and the Leader of the Opposition were justified in interfering in an election was not considered in the very least. The fact of the matter is that there was a "ding-doqg go" over the , Land Bill, and the Government went.,down. To cavil at the figure® is simply to display a narrow mind and a disappointed spirit.