The Press Friday, October 3, 1921. Railway Improvements.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18194, 3 October 1924, Page 8

The Press Friday, October 3, 1921. Railway Improvements.

The ioj:g-:iw;iitod programme' of improvements and new works prepared by the Minister of Bail ways and his advisors was presented to Parliament yesterday and is summarised in our i:cxs columns to-day. The programme involves an expenditure of S millions, which is o millions Jess than the total sum which the Department has estimated is neeessary for a plan of improvement which would Batisfy all tho Department's requirements. This sum of 8 millions is probably twice a3 mueli S3 the proposed works would have cost had they been put in hand fifteen years ago. It is nearly eleven years sinee Mr Hilcy discovered that the preReform Administrations had so negligent as to let the railways run down so badly that between 3 and t millions were even then neeessary to bring them into some effective relation to the transport needs of the Dominion. The country, therefore, is paying heavily for the carelessness of the old regime. There is nothing to be gained, however, by mourning over spilt milk, and one may hope that the heavy expenditure proposed will be' justified by result;. Mr t'oates told the House that none of the works in the programme would show a profit of less than 5 per cent., while some of them would bring in 17 per cent. We should find little encouragement in these figures were it not that the persistent criticism by "The Press'' and one or two other papers has at last obtained general acceptance for the faet that tho railways ought to pity their way, and must be so managed that they will do bo. The eight millions are to bo spent in eight years on. over 40 different and independent works. Although there ninst be several of these works so urgent that nono should be postponed for the benefit of the others, so that it would be good business to put them in hand together, it is difficult to believe that the whole 44 of them ara in this class. No doubt Mr Coates will explain later on why the most urgent are not to be carried out with the utmost expedition—why, that is to eay, the policy of concentration upon first things first is not apparent in the annual of expenditure proposed. In the meantime Canterbury is chiefly interested in the proposals relating to the improvement of the railway connexion between the plains and the sea. Although the General Manager and the ffliinf Engineer are opposed to the duplication of the tunnel, the Government has decided that there are special circumstances which make the duplication desirable. Accordingly the duplication is part of the scheme for local improvements costing £515,000, to be spent in six years. The Government, the Minister says, recognises the peculiar position of Lyttelton, and believes that there is "justification "from a national aspect in the interests of reasonable conditions of travel 1 ' for taking a more liberal view of this '' undertaking than is strictly war"rented by a survey of.traffic volume." It may be true, as the Departmental officials say, that the volume of traffic through the tunnel declined from 1915 to 1920, and has not reached the 1913-14 level, but there is no warrant fer their estimates of the future. They give themselves away, indeed, in a graph which appears in the report, and which is printed in order to show how great are the "prospective" percentage increases in goods tonnage by 1934 in re9peet of Auckland, Palmerston North and Wellington (169 per cent., 122* per cent, and IQB per cent,) and how sm?U (10 per cent.) in respect of Christ-church-Lyttelton, The four lines in the diagram zigzag, as these lines do, and end each with a different slope at the point 1923. The Department apparently arrives at its 1934 estimate by simply continuing each line along the last zigzag, How utterly preposterous this method really is may be realised if we say that had the terminal point in the graph of recorded figures been the year 1923, Auckland and Welling-) ton would have shows a sharp down? j wsrd curve to 1934. We do not profess, however, to understand the graph, and the Departmental officials give no reason for their estimate pf the progress of business on the Christchurchr Lyttelton section. It is satisfactory, however, to know that the Government feels thst it must proceed with the duplication of the tunnel as well as with the urgently necessary improvements in the yards and stations at Lyttelton and Christehnreh, and Canterbury will be stUl fetter pleased if it is to understand that a beginning will be made at once.

The British Labour Party. I: was hinted yesterday, and is confirmed to-day. that the British Labour Party will have to meet a combined attack soon by Unionists and Liberals: and of course if that actually happens, end the assault is driven home, there must be a dissolution. We pointed out recently in a reference to the Russian Treaty that the Government would meet shipwreck en that issue alons if the Liberals proved as bold as their words and the Government as uncompromising as its replv. Mr Asuuith. Mr Lloyd George aid Lord Grey ail declared in their several Trays that the Treaiy was a sham and a "fake."' and that to ratify it would be derogatory to British dignity. Labour replied with equal emphasis that ratification would be asked tor and insisted on. even though this meant an appeal to the count!';., and it began at or.ee canvassing the electorates for the necessary support. And now we have the further oompiioation of the "Workers' "Weekly" case. and the tabling of a Unionist motion of t-ensure on thai: i-rsue before the Kussian Treaty debate begins. Tt will be remembered that the Government began, and dropped, the prosecution of the Editor of the '•Workers' Weekly - ' for publishing tv!;at was alleged to be an incitement of the fighting forces to mutiny; arid in the motion of censure that has been moved the charge against the Government is that it. yielded to "representations" instead of maintaining the dignity of the law. The AttorneyGeneral certainly denies that his action was at any time influenced by "outSide representations." He says that he came to the conclusion, after a careful investigation, that it wa3 '■ impossible to hold Campbell criminally responsible," but he does not deny that "outside representations" we remade, whether they influenced him ov not. The accused man himself, John Ross Campbell, rather gloried in tho prosecution, and professed, apparently quite sincerely, real surprise when it, was withdrawn; and it follows therefore that the "representations" of which the Opposition complains were not from Campbell, or his friends, or the Communist Party to which ho belongs, but from some one much more intimately associated with Downing Street. The suggestion is, indeed, that they were from the Attorney-General's own colleagues, since it is admitted that Campbell's plea was going to be justification, and that he was preparing a defence which involved citing the proceedings and resolutions ot Internationals in which Ministers and prominent trade unionists had taken part. It is obvious that if the Government was deterred from taking action by the faet that some of its members or supporters could not face the witnessbox the Opposition will have an easy eaae —even though there is no party wholly free of sin in this respect. Government supporters are already quoting the Curragh Camp incident just before the war, and it cannot be denied that speeches were made then by prominent members of the present Opposition . which could not be usefully quoted on behalf of law and order to-day. The charge is likely to have such serious consequences that its real import may be lost sight of. But it is necessary to remember, and emphasise, that if the withdrawal of the prosecution involved interference with the duties of the Law Officers, and the rejection, for political reasons, of their advice, the defeat of the Government is not too heavy a punishment. It may or may not be wise to be swift in marking every iniquity of every political firebrand. Though the article published by Campbell contained the clearest appeal to "comrades" to "form "committees in every barracks, aero"drome and ship" with a view to getting soldiers, sailors, and airmen to '' refuse to go to war'' and to '' turn "their weapons on their oppressors," it may still have been wisdom to ignore it. But the Government did not ignore it. It took notice, and it took aetioa, and if it is found that it suspended action because it was afraid of its own past, the censure motion should be carried.