AUCKLAND AND DKURY EAILWAY.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXV, Issue 3751, 27 July 1869, Page 7

AUCKLAND AND DKURY EAILWAY.

To tin Editor of th« Daily Southern Cross. Sir, — This ia the fir«b occasion during the lrstory of iho Auokland and Dmry Railway that I have felt called upon to vindicate my conduct and that of my coadjutors from the aapersions of a public journal, much less the Editor of the Cross. And although I and nay fellow-commissioners were repeatedly attacked by the Auckland press— more like outlaws than honest and industrious citizens — although made the butt of ridicule, the objects of contempt and scorn, and treated with at much severity as though the ruin, of the province were our object, I maintained a a trio t silence and refrained from newspaper strife, But, sir, there are bounds beyond which even an editor must not pass unchallenged. Many of your predecesiors have done valiantly in thu mode of warfare, but in your issue of the 13t,h instant you have excelle 1 them all. You appear to mo to have been brooding over the smouldering embers of s'>me most unaccountable ra>»liee against the promoters of the unfoitunate rail way, enkindled, shall I say, in tho sooty magazine of a heart not very remarkable for jjenerosity of purp >se ; and you have made a most marvellous eeleution of bard phrnses m which to set your bright and Sparkling thoughts. You muab nob be feurprised, therefore, when T ask what is your oWjecfe in the employment of such lauguage as the following, and applying it to those who were engaged in the railway eut^rprine ?—"? — " Abandoned tiy good principle and common nense." " The accumulation of villainy represented hy the gix miles or bo of draary-lookinu; cuttings aud embankments, ■with the aocompaniuienc of ghostly looking gat^s, all of which WhS apparently founded in iniquity, or, at 3ea«t, in hopeless imbecility " jNkw, sir, these remarks cannot be left to produce their tffeot on the pub io mind, when that effe t is obviously intended to be unfavourable. Tlie names of William K.»w«», Joseph Newman, Jerome Cadman, Allan O'Neill, and Thomai Chneseman, are ns widely known (.iiid I may safely add. respected) as that of the c iib >r •f the SuifTHBRN Cross j and sir, I ask, in justice to myself an<t late colloagups, to whioh of u« do y.iur remarks apply? Dv you mean to say that we are steppe i in "villainy," "iniquity," and " homeless inneeili'y"? Sir, I call upon you to explain. If language ha* any meaning, these are giave charges, and must be either eub<tan tinted or withdrawn. I wait the issue, and venture to aaserfc that, when you calmly review your apparently hasty and ill-digestfd leader of Tueiday last, you will readily acknowledge having ta»de use of language which cannot be justified either on the ground of principle or expediency. — Your*, &c, Thomas Cheeskman, Chairman of the late Railway Board. [We cannot but regret that our correspondent has rushed so hastily into tin indiynant vindication of himself from animaginaiy attack made by ourselves. We can hardly suppose it b«yond the comprehension of Mr. Cheeseman that supposititious cases may be treated for the moment aa if strictly correct, and that when we had said it " might be true" (that is, •' as bad bean assertea") that those who first thought of the railway Boheme were only less abandoned by qooit principle and comnvn seube than those who promoted it, we did not endorse, but only refer to the faofc that such and many other wild things had been said. Our correspondent acknowledges in his Utter that such things have been said, and it is not only unjust, hut foolish, to attack us for not forgetting the fact either. We can, however, make every exout-e for Mr. Cheeseman's feelings. Few persons can hare been called on to nil a more thankless — none, we should say, a more dißa^ieeable — office than that held by him aa chairman of the committee of management of an aboitive railroad, abused, for ■ome reason or other, by nine per&ous out of t<-n in the community. It is natural, we hay, that he fhould feel aore on the &übject, but it is unwise to insist upon making us accuse him of all sorts of hard things whether we will or no. — Ed. D.8.0.]