Grey mouth and the Railways.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18302, 9 February 1925, Page 8

Grey mouth and the Railways.

Nobody could have read the report of the public meeting of protest in Grevmouth last week without realising that | the people of Grevmouth are very angry indeed over the Government's decision to rcduco tho administrative staff of the railways in that centre and to reduce the scale of the railway workshops. The Mayor called upon the citizens to put their backs to tho wall "and fight " an injustice," and the Minister and the Government were condemned in other speeches liberally besprinkled with such vigorous adjectives as "disgraceful," "preposterous," and so on. It is difficult to believe that the people of Greyniouth have organised their social and economic life on so prcca ious a basis that the removal of a few railway employees to other centres and the reduction in the size and scope of the workshops will produce the effect of fire, earthquake, flood and famine, and in spite of the language used by some of the speakers I at the meeting we do not believe it. It* is natural enough that Greymouth should protest against anything which may appear to involve even a very slight temporary loss, but the small parochial interests which arc slightly injured must give way to the larger interests with which the Government is concerned. "What Greymouth must prove, if it wishes for the sympathy support of outsiders in its endeavour "to coerce the Government "into complying with its wishes," is that the proposed changes in the administrative staff and in the workshops will lessen the efficiency of the rail-* ways. It is not enough to claim, as

more than one speaker in effect claimed, that it is the duty of the Government to make its first aim the posting of as many State employees as possible in "a district requiring popula"tion." Nor is there the slightest relevance in the* suggestion that the Fay-Raven Commission did not stay in Grcymouth long enough to learn what railway efficiency requires in that town. There arc some situations in which the requirements are visible at a glance, and in any case Mr Coates and his Departmental advisers were free to modify the recommendations of the Commission, and have not chosen to do so. It is possible—we are not in a })osition to give an opinion of our own on this point—that the reduction of the administrative staff on the West Coast may. lead to a neglect, through want of knowledge, of local requirements; but that this result will not follow we are eneouraged. to believe by Mr Coates's new policy of decentralisation and of care for heal conditions. At any rate, C'reymouth is tinlikely to gain anything by relying upon invective and unsound irrelevances to take tho place of direct argument on the main point —which is, not Grevmouth'a "prestige" or its need of population and public money, but the utility of the proposed changes from the Department's point of view. This, we hope, will be borne in mind by the deputation which is to interview the Minister. It ought, per-, haps, to be added, by way of conclusion, that our Greymouth friends ought to get rid of their delusion that anyone wishes to make Westland "a part "of the province of Canterbury." The provinces are now mere geographical conceptions, and Canterbury has not, and cannot have, any greater possessive or other authority over any part of Westland than Westland can have over Canterbury. We wish, of course, to see Westland "a part of "Canterbury" in that sense in which Canterbury is perfectly willing to become "a part o'f Westland." —to.see the, two provinces, is to say, flourishing together, and exchanging their products to their mutual advantage, for th-3 greater tho progress that Westland makes' the better it will bo for the people on this side of the ranges.