The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatsoever state or persuasion, religious or political. SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 1887.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2298, 2 April 1887, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatsoever state or persuasion, religious or political. SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 1887.

Tiek entrance of the. Railway Reform League upon afresh campaign, to .push forward the movement in the coining session of Parliament, should meet with hearty approval and sympathy from tho settlors of Waikato, and the resolution arrived at by the Executive Committee of tho League on Thursday, the members of which met Mr Vaile and Mr Rich to arrange a programme of operations, will undoubtedly commend itself as the best possible that could have been arrived at in the present circumstances. There are none, even those who oppose Mr Vaile's scheme, but admit that a radical reform in the policy of workiug onr railways is a necessity— that they should be worked with the object of promoting settlement rather than of producing revenue. At eighty and a hundred miles from a market, present freights on farm produce become almost prohibitive, and if the same mileage rate is to be imposed beyond Te Awamutu they will become wholly so.

It is cheaper, for cropping purposes, for a farmer to pay £5 a year rent for land close in to Auckland than to own land at Te Awamutu, the interest on the purchase money of which may stand him in, say, £1 an acre in the shape of rent, and crop it. The freight on an average crop of potatoes would in the one case cost more, than the rent of the laud in the other. This is an extreme case, it is true, but a similar result is felt more or less in every article of produce sent to the Auckland market. No wonder then that Waikato, feeling the pinch so severely, has actively taken up the matter of railway reform during the past four years, and still continues to do so.

During all this period and even, from an earlier date the scheme propounded by Mr Vaile is the only one which has been brought forward for consideration. It has, as our readers are aware, met with bitter hostility | in official quarters, and there have, as might have been expected, been found very many who have ranged themselves against it with the weapons of ridicule and misrepresentation, and some with those of argument. If it cannot be conclusively affirmed, on the one hand, that Mr Vaile has proved absolutely to demonstration that his scheme must be the financial success he claims for it, it must he admitted, on the other side, that the opponents to the scheme have never been able to disprove his statements or refute his arguments, and what is somewhat remarkable and suggestive is the fact that dining all this period, while men's minds have been agitated with this problem of railway reform, no one has come forward, in the interests of settlement, and in the face of the unsatisfactory financial results of the working of the New Zealand railways, with some more acceptable scheme than his. It is scarcely to be wondered at, therefore, if the Railway Reform League still continue to champion the reform scheme proposed by Mr Vaile. No better has been brought forward.

But the result of: the Pat-Ha-ni entry Commission of last session was sufficient to show that a very clear prima facie case has been made out in favour of the scheme, so much so that the commission recommended its trial under certain conditions. That those conditions would render the concession impracticable, we pointed out at the time. What the League now asks is that the scheme should have a trial unhampered by any such conditions ; that it shall be settled once and for all by practical demonstration whether Mr Vaile's system, which has occupied the attention of the colony for more than four years, and which so many have faith in, is either a failure or a success by trying it on one or more lines such as the Hurunui-Bluff, the Napier-Woodville, or the Aucklancl-Kaipara-Waikato line, all of which lines reach far from a port, and have large quantities of unsettled laud adjacent, which, it is asserted, would be brought under settlement by the adoption of such a railway scheme.

When it is considered that the loss sustained by trying the scheme on any one ot these lines cannot be very large should it not prove the success Mr Vaile claims for it, and that if successful it would be of immense value to the colony, and that nothing else but a trial will satisfy a large and intelligent portion of the entire population of New Zealand that it would be other than successful if fairly tried, it is, we think, not asking Parliament too much to grant the request of the petition. Nay, we will go so far as to say, that for a Parliament to continue to turn a deaf ear to the reiterated wishes and opinions of so large a section of the people

would be high-handed and unconstitutional.

We cannot but congratulate the League on its persistency, and are glad to learn from the gentlemen who met the Executive Committee on Thursday that the luke-warm support hitherto accorded to the movement by our Auckland fellow colonists has by this time risen to a more generous and glowing heat. This is good news to us in Waikato, who as yet have borne the heat and burden of the day in the cause of railway reform. To us is still left to plan, to organise, and to carry out the battle of reform, and that it will be done exhaustively and energetically a& it has been done during the last two years, we have no doubt ? The cost and toil however, have borne heavily upon a comparatively small

and by no means wealthy community, and the active sympathy and assistance of the city with the country in fighting a cause common to the interests of both will infuse new vigour into our efforts. It is more than probable that the session of Parliament which meets at the end of the month may not grant the request of the petition, but the step gained last session was a decided and important ;■ advance upon the progress made in the preceding session, as may be seen by the admission made in the findings oil tho Parliamentary Committee embodied in the new petition of tho League. So, now, in the session before us we do not reap the full measure of reform we aim at, we shall have sown the seeds which in a new Parliament will lead to a full and satisfactory result. Having put our hand to the plough, we must not look back.