Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 1929. UNACCEPTED CHALLENGE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 129, 5 June 1929, Page 10

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 1929. UNACCEPTED CHALLENGE

When the Ward Cabinet' grasped the reins of government, it proceeded at once to give a shock to preconceived notions in matters of public works policy. Among other things, it stopped work on the Palmerston North railway deviation, which step was backed' with a very detailed and argumentative statement, the conclusion of which (if the facts* were right) was hard to resist. Against this array of facts and figures the protest movement made little headway, arid it had to be admitted on all sides that the Government had proceeded in the right way to correct what it believed to be a false step— that' is to say, the Government had put up a reasoned case. It had "come down to tin-tacks." In such circumstances, most people are. prepared to admire an Administration with a mind of its own; the courage to say so, and the determination even to uproot a colony of public workers for transplantation elsewhere. But while most people are prepared to submit to a shock to preconceived notions if and when cause is shown, the proviso remains vital. Sharp departures from the generally accepted order of things connote, or should connote, a thorough analysis and restatement of the position for public information. As the public was taken into the Cabinet's confidence when the Palmerston North deviation was stopped; there seems to be no reason against—and every reason for—similar candour in connection with the acceleration of the South Island Main Trunk and other long distance railways. To say merely "long distance" is not enough. Distance is no fetish. Sir Joseph Ward came down to tin-tacks at Palmerston North. Why not at Ward—or even at Parnassus?

That special opportunity has been given him is obvious. It is not the usual case of a public works proposal about which the Government knows everything, while people outside know next to nothing. When opinion outside Government circles is ill-founded, it is usual for Governments to conceal their own knowledge from the public, and to allow public opinion to form itself, so that the politician may follow an opportunist policy instead, of informing and leading. And Sir Joseph Ward hints that the late Government did something similar.

The Government was elected to complete trunk lines, 1 and the previous Administration should have made facts as regards costs public when the matter was being discussed on the public platfornrbefore the election.

But while we are not concerned to excuse the late Government, nor to defend a system which, by some mysterious juggling, makes a railway deviation appear milk white before an election and jet black a couple of years later, still.we would point out that by the very leakage of information (no matter whose the credit or debit may be) the new Ward policy of acceleration is far more under challenge-than was the Coates policy of deviation two or three years ago. The public does not know what the Chairman of the Railways Board said to Mr. Coates when the Palmerstori North deviation was begun, or what he said to Mr. Coates at any time before Mr. Coates sent a communication to Mr. Girling, but it does know what the same authority (lately retired from the Railways Chairmanship to private life) says to-day about the economic outlook of the South Island Main Trunk railway. ;.\ If what the ex-Chairman says is right, completion of that line would be a disaster. And, as.was pointed out in these columns a few days ago, the cases presented by the Prime Minister and the late chief of railways are so incompatible that the Prime Minister should face the position, welcoming this extraordinary opportunity to do so. So far, however, Sir Joseph Ward has not seized the chance to expound the South Island Main Trunk position in the same way as he exploded the situation at Palmerston North. He has not accepted the unique challenge, and couched lance against lance. In his speech in Auckland lie replies to South Island Main Trunk criticisms by repeating his generalised defence of long distance rail-ways-he has not taken hold of the alarming figures published and combated them in any specific manner. He is no.t lifted out of the wood by references to a: report • (Fay-Raven) with which'he differs concerning an essential proviso (the train-ferry service), nor is he helped by the fact (if it be a fact) that the official opinion that no new railway can pay "was never emphasised in any of the late« Railway Board's published reports, although the facts were probably pointed "' out xhy the chairman ;of the Board to the then Minister of Railways." If Sir Joseph's conclusion is correct, it may explain (without excusing) the fact that "the Government was elected to complete trunk lines," and it may be regarded as entitling both the electors, and the present Government to a certain amount of sympathy for having been kept.in the dark; but no one would attempt to say that it is a reason for proceeding to expend fresh millions, and for refusing to make a thorough analysis of the economic outlook within,the. sight and hearing of the public. If something is now known that was not known'before, that is surely a reason for taking fresh stock of the situation irrespective of any platform

pledge made wholly or partly in ignorance. And all that Sir Joseph said in Auckland last night about revenue falls and leakages (to the Treasury deficit and the railway shortage he now adds the superannuation vacuum) emphasises the need for more light. The statesman who showed how irioney ought to be left in the ground at Palmerston North (perhaps for ten years, perhaps for ever) should show with at least equal clarity that the money ought not to be left in the ground between Ward and Parnassus. He should inquire farther on the lines where challenge has led. And the public, now knowing what the ex-chief of the railways thinks, should also be told the responsible opinion of the present General Manager.