MR BRACKEN AND THE LOCOMOTIVES.

Evening Star, Issue 6479, 21 December 1883, Page 1

MR BRACKEN AND THE LOCOMOTIVES.

It is to be regretted that the exuberant zeal of some jjeople cannot be tempered -frith discretion. Mr Thomas Bracken represents Dunedin Central in Parliament, and although we may not agree with the course he politically adopted, we give him credit lor a conscientious and assiduous discharge of his duties in the House. We conceive, however, that he altogether mistakes hie position in considering that he has an all-the-year-round-mission to interfere with Iho work of the Government departments. This recent matter of the locomotives, which he has made himself so busy about, is by no means his first offeree in endeavoring to interpose between the officials responsible for the constructed railways being in working order and the Minister. It will bo manifestly impossible for the public service to be efficiently carried on if members of the Legislature are to b; perpetually putting their oars in and meddling in departmental affairs: If Mr Bracken and his friends ot the Opposition think that the rail wayadministration is defective, they have the constitutional remedy of exposing it in their places in Parliament, where they are free to make any comments and ask any questions they please. In the particular instance to which we are referring, Mr Bracken picks up from the man in the street or elsewhere the startling intelligence that three locomotives have been remove u from Hillside for repair at the Addington workshops. Upon this he forthwith, without apparently taking the trouble to inquire into the circumstances, sends off to the Minister cf Public Works a telegram evidently intended for publication, in which he beats the drum of alleged unemployed mechanics in Dunedin. As a fact, one of the three engines sent on to Christchurch was for shipment to Wanganui, and the others could not be repaired here on account of all the available machinery and plant being in use cn eight locomotives now under repair. The Government, as Mr Bracken should know, have made large additions'to the workshops at Hillside during the past twelve months j but the machinery and fittings, to the fall extent intended, are not yet completed. When tins is done Hillside will no doubt be abio to overtake all the work accruing south of the Waitaki. In the meantime it would in truth be ridiculous that in. order to strike an exact balance between Canterbury and Otago, locomotives nceding repair shall stand in the XL Hsiao yard for works awaiting their turn, when they could be run up to Addington and there taken in hand at one . The official who sanctioned sued an extravagant proceeding would nor, be fit for his position. There may w ell be difficulty in working the railways at a profit when the Administration is hampered on tire one hand by provincial jealousies, and on the other by efforts to make political capital out of matters of departmental routine. Howimpossible, under such circumstances, that close economy can be studied either in the appropriations or their expenditure! It is a case of pull “ Devil, puli baker,” but the unfortunate taxpayer has to stand the racket.