The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2681, 20 September 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1871.

In the face of the manifest advantages derivable from railway communication, it is surprising that public opinion has not become so decided on the subject as to lead to every landed proprietor giving hearty assistance to their construction, instead of throwing every impediment in their way. To none will the advantage resulting from them be a greater boon than to the owners of property along tire Port Oluhners line. It will open up building sites with landscape scenery of surpassing beauty,

which are now comparatively valueless, because inaccessible excepting at too great a cost of time and labor, and add value to every hill-side capable _of being used as pasture ground for dairy cattle. Yet society, with the certainty of these prospects before them, submits to have their undoubted rights played with by a few selfish, short-sighted men, who have not brains enough to see what is good for themselves, and are utterly regardless of the duty they owe to others. The judgment given in the Supreme Court yesterday proves the folly of the conduct of this class of men. It is only right that the discomfitted applicant for an injunction should pay the penalty of heavy expenses for the factious opposition he has thrown in the way of the progress of the work. The annoyance is, that on such frivolous grounds the promoters have been put to delay, annoyance, and necessarily to the cost of maintaining their right to go on with the formation of the line. We do not find fault with the provision that every man who has

to give up something valuable for the good of society should be fairly compensated. H'e has a perfect right to be placed on as good a footing as he would have held, had no railway been made. Beyond that he has no claim, lie shares in the generally increased prosperity arising from the additional facility giving to trade and intercommunication, and the mere accident of a road interfering with his occupation or investment gives him no right to extravagant compensation. But this principle, as a general rule, is ignored in dealing with private property affected by railway formation. Acted upon in its integrity it would cut both ways. If the man whose calling is interfered with, or whoso property is injured has a right to compensation, it would be only fair that the property benefitted should contribute to the expense. Nor need this assertion excite ridicule or be thought visionary. It is only a question of time : the principle is already established in the manage-

ment of our common roads, and already in prospect of the formation of main lines of railway, several large landed proprietors are taking steps to form branch lines leading into them at private expense. It was unfortunate that the English railway system was inaugurated by private companies instead of by the government. The consequence has been disastrous both at Home and in all the Colonies' and dependencies. It has induced the tradition that railways are worked merely for private instead of public benefit, and that railway companies are fair game for every grasping landowner to pluck. The opposition of a very few persons on the Port Chalmers line has been productive of serious expense and delay. It is evident from the decision- given yesterday that the Provincial- Ordinances were of themselves sufficient to empower the promoters to proceed. It ought not to have been necessary to have passed them at all, so far as the owners of property along the line were concerned. If they had come forward in a rightminded way with reasonable propositions, there would have been no need for the Compulsory Land Taking Ordinance. But even this decisive step was not sufficient to prove to the obstructive landowners that they were powerless to prevent the work going forward. Many ©f its provisions are absurd enough and unfair enough. It is a one-sided affair, giving every advantage to the owner of property at the expense of the railway promoters or the Province, and inviting that opposition it was intended to overcome. But not only so, report says—truly or not ought strictly to be enquired into—that the Provincial Solicitor, forgetful of his duty as an officer of the Provincial Government, so far from for-

warding the views of the Government in doing his best to cany out the provisions of the Act at as little cost to. promoters as. possible," has given his 1 professional aid' to establish extravagant claims to compensation. We believe it is no uncommon thing for an attorney,in whom both sides to a suit have confidence, to act for both under certain circumstances with advantage. But no such conciliatory motives are attributed to the Provincial Solicitor in the cases specified. His notions of duty seem to us very vague. He may make them square with his own ideas of right and wrong, but we cannot help thinking that there ought to be no such trimming as must take place between public duty and private professional practice, when a Provincial Solicitor throws impediments in the wa} 7 ’ of a work, judged by the Council to be necessary for the development of the Province,