AN UNGRACIOUS BLUNDER.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 78, 2 April 1913, Page 6

AN UNGRACIOUS BLUNDER.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —The after-dinner speeches of Messrs. Mander, Thos. Goate3, at the opening of the Kaiwnka railway station, were characterised <py the tactlessness and indiscretion \ which has marred many a pleasant social gathering, and set back many a movement for the public benefit. The large assemblage present had gathered to celebrate the opening of the line to the northern terminus, and to congratulate the Ka.iw.aka people on their accession of railway facilities. They did not wi3h for a resurrection of the route controversy, which was settled —and buried —four years ago by the Government then in power, who had previously given the fullest opportunity to the advocates of each route (east and west) to place their evidence before them. But Messrs. Mander and Coates were determined to parade their well-nursed grievance (?), with the result that friction was caused at the meeting, and had it noi.been for the good sense shown by the chairman in turning the situation, an unpleasant scene might have occurred. The fact, however, remains that the gathering, which -will be long remembered for the splendid hospitality of the people of Kaiwafca, was marred by the ungracious blunder of two men, whose age and experience of public life renders their abuse of the courtesy which the reception committee had accorded them but the more unpardonable. So far as I know of the men who fought the battle of the routes for the west, 1 •think that had they lost they would had the grace to have "taken their beating." They would not have chosen the occasion of a public celebration to make everyone uncomfortable by the rehearsal of a past controversy.—l am, etc., Panarosw HE2TCY HOOK.