The Daily Telegraph SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1882.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3551, 25 November 1882, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1882.

Lest it should be imagined that the tenders invited for the erection of an office at the Napier railway station have anything in common with what the public have been clamoring for during the last three years we hasten to say that tbey have not. The office is to .onsist of a couple of rooms uuattached to the existing station building, and is doubtless intended to be devoted to the use of the manager or some other official. The convenience, or the comfort of the people, whose custom and patronage make it possible to employ officials, is not going just yet to be studied. The customers of tbe railway are to be made to put up with any neglect that it may please the authorities to decree. It was thought that when this borough had separate parliamentary representation it would obtain some 6hare of the consideration that ia never omitted to be shown to a Southern constituency, however insignificant it may be. It was known that both Mr Buchanan and Mr Sutton would act together, and also be assisted by Mr Smith, in any matter affecting the interests of their constituents. Ministers knew this quite as well as the people of this provincial district, and the consequence was that, during the session, the most gracious condescension was shown towards any representation that was made by our members in their interviews with the powers that be. There the whole thing ended. There was not a single thing done that was a?ked for beyond what had long previously been i resolved upon. Napier was to have a ) railway station in the place of a rabbit hutch, tbe platform was to be roofed over, there was to be a place protected from the weather in which travellers could put their personal luggage, and they themselves were no longer to stand in the rain when waiting for tho arrival or departure of a train. We were even authoritively informed that a sum of £800 had been authorised to be expended in making these improvements. But no money has been spent. To our enquiry as to the delay we were told that the original plans of the station shanty bad been lost, and it was necessary before others could be provided that a new survey should be made ot the ground and the buildings. Had there been any earnest intention to effect improvements it might, perhaps, have taken as much as a couple of days to have surveyed all that was wanted, and to have drawn out the plans. Eight hnndred pounds do not form such a very large sum of money as to require months of careful thought as to the most economical method of spending it. A verandah over the platform, and an additional room or two, would have seen the end of all the money. At Hastings much more than that as been spent on the improvement of the station, which now is a palace compared to the hovel at Napier. The gcod people in the South Island, who travel at their ease, have no idea of the beggarly accommodation that we in the North are expected to be satisfied with. The most paltry contrivances are adopted to save a sixpence here. If this cheese-paring system were general throughout the whole of the New Zealand railways we should have less to complain about, but it is not so. Very few things are left undone in the other Island to promote the convenience of travellers and the wants of the goods traffic. To spend £10,000 in the improvement of the Invercargill terminus is not deemed extravagant, though the station there is incomparably superior to anything that we may expect at the present rate of progression within the next fifty years. It is humiliating to think that 'with the Government now in power public wants will not be listened to without constant agitation, and alternate begging and threats, and that to the latter "the Ministry should be more amenable than to anything else.