ROTORUA-TAUPO LINE.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19683, 29 July 1929, Page 8

ROTORUA-TAUPO LINE.

REPLY BY MR VAILE, i TO tshe ri>:rca or thb f»es*. Sir.—Just how the Prime Minister civ itaincd access to my private correspond , tnce with his predecessor, I am at a I loss to underhand. Having pot posi session of the lettr r. it. of cours.', rested with Sir Joseph Ward's gjod taste and sense of what is gentlemanly, or ewe ! decent, whether he should ptiblwh it. Every line of the Utter showed that it was a private communication iati tided for Mr Coates's eye on.y. But thv letter having been published, I have nothing to withdraw or apologise lor, exeej t that, labouring ci.d r * nn-i litter di>ap; oin::..i n: a:.'j :■ »'i i, I .-i r-. >- •d the l'.'.iu. M-:.-- « . -u a tv : 1 r gret ha\i;.g li wive.'. Mr «. ._■ - wis high minded <!iu»J - nt tj r--■ i.: this. And if he n.dul\Ld to il.l-. '.:.. ] rumise made n.ore tl.a:i ■• l 'T<.\. UjS.,, whj shall t'lan.e Liiii* Be.: :iL>'.t i ti.at ihe promise was nude not to ir..persoi.a.ly, bat tu a di.puta!iu:L And I •so not flatter nj.vae.f t.i-.! u \ utter 1,-» i thrcepeun;. wortu of i'!l ; .Ji:'.n. It h i. it correet t.'iat the railway nas pu! in band at oate. It was nut ud a \i-r after wards, and at a tune when 1 :m i t>c<-n out of the Dominion for months. No reply to my letter w-s received ly roe. and from that d:.y u:i!.l my return to New Zealand in April of this year, 1 had rtt) communication of any kind with Mr Coatee, except a letter of introduction he was kind enough to seni me. As to my work for the Reform Party. I am not in the least repentant. At that time the Seddon-Ward Government was extremely autocratic, and opposition was necessary. Sir Joseph Ward now as sumes, .the same autocratic attitude, but without the snnic—or any—majority. At the time I assisted in the ine ption of the Reform Party there was nothing to be gained bnt everything to be lost by opposing the all-powerful and seetnirigiv permanent Seddon-Ward Government. At the time of my leaving Auck- ; .nd (1508), Mr Massey —a leader with whom 1 am proud to have been intimnteiv associated —was the president, and I was the working viee-yesident. Since then I have not even been a member of any branch of the Reform Party and have had nothing to do with politics, devoting all my energies to making the wilderness blossom as the turnip. At the time I was vice president, Mr Contes was not a member of the Party and he knew nothing of my early activities. Sir Joseph Ward pretends to believe, and asks us to believe, that so soon as I informed Mr Coates of what I had done for tbe Party from twenty to thirty years previously and scolded him for a bad boy, he" prostrated himself and immediately ordered the construction of a railwav for my sole benefit, at a co«t of £700,000. Ssch absolute piffle makea one think that the Prime Minister imagines everyone is suffering from senile deray. Sir Joseph aeeks to condemn the Bo-torua-Taupo railway by dubbing it a political railway. That ii the exact opposite of the truth. It commands no votea. Otherwise it would have been built many years a««. It» ease is the case of the great waafe spaces. My voice is the voice of one crying in the wilderness where no man is—but where many men are badly needed. Sir Joseph Ward is reported to hare said that he did not know what I was. Well he ought to know all about a wonderful person who orders Prime Ministers and Governments about, and baa £700,000 thrown at him to placate him. But of course Sir Joseph's remark is quite wide of the truth. He well knows who and what I am—and is likely to know better. Would he like me to return the compliment he has paid me by publishing a private conversation I had with him at the time that I and the other landowners of the district were offering: a rate upon our lands to help in the construction of the railway t It would be tedious to follow Sir Joseph through all his misstatements. But I must challenge him on one point. Mr Parry interjected: "A couple of your Ministers tuought the land was quite all right." To which Sir Joseph replied: "I do not know anything about that." He knew it quite welL The Prime Minister professed to have referred this question to Sir Apirana Ngata and the Hons. Messrs Ransom, Fcrbe*, and Taverner, who were to make a thorough investigation, on the result of which the Government would act. Sir Apirana (who has for long been acquainted with the district) and the Hon. Mr Ransom (who made a painstaking inspection), reported in favour of the railway. At the time of Sir Joseph's decision, the Hon. Mr Forbes had not been near the district, so his opinion could not hare been counted. As to what opinion, if any, the Hon. Mr Taverner expressed, I have no knwoledge: but anvhow, his inspection was most hurried and perfunctory. Sir Joseph Ward also knows perfectly well that three successive Enginoers-in-Chief of the Public Works Department— Messrs Blow, Holmes, and Furkert—have recommended the construction of this railway and so has the present general-manager, Mr Sterling. Sir Joseph vTard's statement that I sold a large area of my land after the railway was promised is as far from the facts as his other statements. 1 sold all my land (except less than onefifth of the original area, which I now farm) prior to May, 1925—more than two years previously. During the discussion, a cheap laugh was raised by the question whether I am a land-agent or not. I am not: but I formerlv was, and am not in the least ashamed of the fact. I built up a great business of the highest character and standing. No single person who trusted his money to me for investment or followed my advice, ever lost a penny. I sat severely on extreme values. But, after all. what interests the public is not what or who E. E. Vaite is, but whether the Koto-rua-Taupo railway is justified. Let anyone resuJ our pamphlet and judge for himself It makes an absolutely unanswerable case for the railway, though, r>f course, anything can be misrepresented and ridiculed bv a Parliamentary mountebank for Party purposes. The Member for the district report* ♦hat Sir Joseph Ward has promised to afford onr League all facilities for laying its cause before hte Committee which is to be set up. If he perform* this promise it will redound greatly to his credit. Let ns see what he actually does.—Yours, etc-, E. E. VAILE. "Broadlands,"' Waiotapu. July 3Cth, 1929.