The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. TUESDAY, JULY 12, 1887.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2341, 12 July 1887, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 1887.

Equiil and exact justice to all men, Ot whatsoever state or persuasion, religious or political.

It is not. wc presume, because the railway reform scheme of Mr Yaile was not made one of the planks of the platform of the newly formed Waikato Political Financial Reform Association that candidates are to he allowed to go to Wellington without coming to a distinct and definite understanding on that point with their constituents, both in Waipa and "Waikato. The question of direct retrenchment, as apart from admistrative reform, was so important a matter, and needed so compact a front on the part of its advocates that it was considered bettor to allow nothing to be mixed up with it that could possibly become a subject of dissension. It would have been the small rift in the political lute that might have destroyed its harmony. A workman uses different tools for different purposes, though he carries them all about with him, and so the electors will need to use different instruments for cutting down the upas tree of reckless extravagance in Government departments on the one hand, and for building up increased revenue by a remodelling of institutions on the other. Nor does it appear that the public are losing sight of the matter of railway reform. The correspondence columns of the press show that in the minds of the electors this matter still occupies a position second only to that of retrenchment itself. In Waipa intending candidates can scarcely as yet be said to be before the public, but in Waikato the support or otherwise of Mr Yailes scheme of railway reform is already being used as an election cry, and will undoubtedly have to be made a test question, although altogether apart from the two other burning questions of the day, retrenchment, and the retention in or the expulsion from office of the present Government. The latter was the issue on which the Government appealed to the country and must not bo lost sight of. It is something more than a mere side issue. The former is the issue upon wnich tho successors to the present Government must be elected, whatever the 'personnel of the New Ministry may be. In Waikato, then, we have now two candidates before the constituency, and it is scarcely likely that a third will come forward, but neither of these are supporters of Mr 'Yaile’s scheme. Mr Whyte, though he is an advocate of railway reform in the direction of reducing long distance fares and freights will not accept Mr Yaile’s scheme as it stands, and Mr Russell, while professing to he a pronounced supporter and an active member of the League is not one bit more pledged to it than Mr Whyte himself. Nay, of the two the honest foe may be less dangerous to a cause than the false friend. At the election meeting at Hamilton, on the 20th ult. Mr Russell said. It was not necessary that he should go over the whole of the ground in regard to Valle’s system. He accepted it in all its essentials as a sound system which would promote settlement, increase the value of country lands, create inland towns, lessen poverty, and withal prove a financial success and return revenue. He wished to bo perfectly explicit upon this point, but at the same time he was not going to bind himself to every detail of Mr Valle’s scheme. There were some features, such, for instance, as the interWaikato 4d and Gd fares, which he did not approve, but he thoroughly believed in tho stage system, and would do his utmost to have it carried out in all its essential features. Now, with such a reservation as this, publicly made, no man is bound in his adherence to the scheme. The annihilation of distances is tho very essence of Vaile’s scheme, and, if taken from it, leaves it nothing but a question of reduction of fares, simply substituting seven mile stages for the mileage system, and reform then in railway charges can be as easily made by a uniform reduction in the one case as in the other. Those electors, therefore, who wish to make Vaile’s system a crucial test at the coming election will have to come to a clear understanding with Mr Russell on this matter. He was once a pronounced and energetic member of the League, but cannot now assume this position till he has recanted his heresy and returned again to the true fold. Ho must not bo allowed to make a stalking horse of Mr Yaile’s sehomo to secure his election, and then when in Parliament bo able to turn round and say—“ I pledged myself only to Vailo’s sehomo so far, and not if this and other details of it are retained.” The resolution made at the Hamilton mooting will fairly entitle him so to act, without rendering him unfaithful to his trust, in tho letter at least, if not in tho spirit. Vailo’s system, as Mr Russell would havo it, would simply bo tbo play of Hamlet with tho part of Hamlet left out. On the other hand Air Whyte’s opposition to tho

scheme has undoubtedly injured his candidature. Ho is at least sincere in his opposition. He does not believe in its successful working, and rejects it. Now no man can be asked to hold opinions to order. We do consider, however, that where a man is in perfect accord with a constituency on every other essential point, that ho is bound if he asks their suffrages to yield practically to their wishes in that matter. The arguments in favour of and against Mr Yailc’s scheme have been threshed out again and again in the columns of the press and elsewhere, and neither side has convinced the other, nor is likely to do so. The question has passed beyond the region of debate. No other possible means can bo taken to decide its value or otherwise than to give it an actual trial on one or other suitable lines of railway, and this is now the position the Railway Reform League has taken up, and with it, some seventy or eighty local bodies throughout the colony as representing the general public of their districts. The result of actual experiment, if unsuccessful, cannot be a serious loss, but, if successful, will be an immense gain to settlement, to the colonial revenue, to the convenience of the public who use the railways, and will break up that gigantic social evil —the congregating of the people in masses in the larger centres to the depopulation of the country. Now a candidate for Parliament, however much he may dispute, or be unconvinced in his own mind of the success of a scheme as a means to this end, must remember after all the money he is asked to vote in giving it a practical trial is not his money, but that of the people who are willing to allow it to be so expended. He neither wrongs his own opinion and self-respect, nor wrongs the people it in deference to the will of the large majority he yields, not his opinions, but his actions. To do so is to sacrifice no principle, but simply to accept the inevitable as the will of the majority, and the responsibility in the caae of failure rests with them. The electors will expect as much as this from Mr Whyte. No one asks him to pose as the apostle of this particular scheme of railway reform. We all know that he is as warm an advocate of railway reform as any of us, and has made himself on more than one occasion a thorn in the side of the railway department, and therefore he may be fairly called upon to agree to the one thing asked, to vote for a trial of the scheme. If successful an immense benefit will have been conferred upon the colony ; if otherwise, a vexed question, which has taken such a hold on the public mind that nothing hut actual experiment will decide its merits will have been settled, and we shall be then at liberty to lay ourselves out to devise other measures of railway reform. That, however, Mr Valle’s system lias advocates amongst the leading statesmen of New Zealand will be seen by the following extracts from the speech of Sir George Grey delivered on Thursday evening last. He said; —ln regard to their railways, the whole country owned the railways. In this respect they were different to Great Britain, where the railways were owned by companies, but in New Zealand every one of them was a shareholder and entitled to equrl benefits from them. He was a shareholder and every one he saw around him was also a shareholder. He said it was wrong that varied charges should be imposed for distances till the burden became intolerable, and a man holding land beyond a certain distance from a centre of population owned that which was of no value. (Cheers,) Why, if at the upper end of Waikato they fastened on a truck containing cattle, what did it patter how far they had to take that truck. The great expense of their railways was in sending trains at specified times and certain hours, and these trains took little or nothing beyond, perhaps, one or two who like him were in the happy position of members of the House, and who paid nothing. (Cheers and laughter.) What advantage, he asked, did they gain by preventing anyone or anything coming by train ? Was it not destructive of the commercial interests of the city and of the agricultural interests of the country 1 A great part of the cost of railways was in keeping up communication, but let every train bring something—let them come loaded—because it costs so little to transport, and the advantages would be enormous. That was what they should aim at, and let them consider what the result would be. Why, they could enrich their fellow-colonists enormously, and lands which were now worth—what should he say—why, nothing at all, would be as valuable as lands situated within 30 or 40 miles of Auckland. They would thus tempt people to go on the land, and would instruct their children to look further to agriculture as one of the privileges of life, instead of being, as it was now only too often thought to be, a low occupation. What he said with regard to Mr Yailo was that he was filled with admiration for Mr Yailo for the determination and resolution with which he had followed out his plan. He had great courage to make such a proposal. The same thought, as ,Mr Yaile would tell them, had lingered in his mind, and he could not speak too highly of what he thought of Mr Yaile. At a great cost of time, amidst great discouragement, and even ridicule, he had followed the track of duty, and he (Sir G. Grey) would always stand by him. (Cheers.)