Ministers and Toll-gates

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 49, 21 November 1932, Page 11

Ministers and Toll-gates

Sir, —Owing to absence from Wellington I was precluded from seeing earlier the Hon. Mr. Macmillan’s letter, which appeared in your issue of the 16th inst. While I regret to observe that the Minister has discarded his wonted courtesy in that he states that “the only compelling motives” of those who oppose toll-gates are “disagreeableness and bumptiousness,” I hasten to assure him that he need be at no pains to make ma understand him. I understand Mr. Macmillan thoroughly for the reason that he is much too candid to be ambiguous. However, I am not now discussing the merits of toll-gates. Commenting on the assurance of the Right Hon. Mr. Coates that the establishment of a toll-gate at Paremata would not be a precedent, I pointed out that, once there is a toll-gate there, four counties would demand tollgates forthwith, and that Mr. Macmillan himself was “out” for a toll-gate in the County of Tauranga. In effect that gentleman says in reply that I was quite correct, save that it is in the borough, not the county, of Tauranga where he wants the toll-gate. In the face of these facts I ask again, what reliance can we place on Mr. Coates’s assurance?—l am, etc., I*. J. O’REGAN. November 19.