The Evening Star TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 1909.

Evening Star, Issue 14038, 20 April 1909, Page 4

The Evening Star TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 1909.

It is, perhaps, cruel to -wish that Sir Joseph Ward, Mr Roderick Dunedin’s M'Kenzie, Mr Thomas MacVoice. kenzie, and Mr J. A. Millar N ’ had been present at the meeting in the Town Hall last night. It was an “indignation meeting,” and the Ministerial quartet would not have been kept busy acknowledging compliments; but, for all that, the experience might have been salutary. As it is, the Government will not be wise in their generation if they affect to minimise the significance of this civic and provincial demonstration. For once in a way, the people of Dunedin did themselves proper justice; and, if the new standard of public sentiment can only be maintained, it will no longer be possible to regard apathy concerning the interests of the district as a characteristic of the local population. Nay, we are not without hope that last night’s emphatic protest—repeated, as it soonwill be, in the Ministerial presence—may be successful in regard to its imirlediate object, and that the monstrous proposal to break faith with the Roxburgh settlers may shortly be relegated to the limbo of abandoned fantasies. The character of the proceedings at the Town Hall was excellent from start to finish. The overflow attendance, the notaibly reasonable, yet vigorous and uncompromising, tone of the speeches, the telling array of solid fact and argument, the strong manifestation of sober but resolute feeling, were all in accord with the best traditions of the Dunedin of an earlier day—the palmy times when the will of the City and Province were not lightly disregarded in the national councils. t The speakers, almost without exception, are to be-congratulated upon their efforts. The Mayor presided faultlessly ; Mr James Allen, scrupulously avoiding the strictly political note, spoke with admirable verve and cogency; Mr Bathgate, who is now (as his father was thirty years ago) a veteran among Otago enthusiasts, presented the case for the railway in detail, with capital thoroughness; Mr Rattray’s remarks were businerslike and unerringly to the point; the views of the industrial class were adequately expressed by Mr M’Manus and Mr Boreham; Mr Moritzson was appropriately statistical; Mr Callan was in his usual excellent form; and (last but not least) Mr Bennetts and other representatives from the Teviot district voiced the feelings of the disappointed settlers and fruit-growers' with natural and moving emphasis. Only one criticism is called for. The wording of . the-main resolution was quite absurdly mild : indeed, the terms of the formal remonstrance, apart from the speeches, might almost convey an impression that the good people of Dunedin were nob very wide-awake after all. Wide-awake they are, though, however strange tho phenomenon may appear; and scornful Northerners and intriguing Southerners alike will make a mistake if they fancy that the protest will be a transient affair and that the last will soon have been heard of the Lawrence-Rox-burgh Railway. It might be worth while to raise a few pounds for the purpose of circulating a full report of last night’s speeches in pamphlet form in other parts of the Dominion. The ignorance—and,

we ate sorry to have to add, the ill-will—-displayed by some of the newspaper critics outside Otago during the last fortnight is almost incredible—(witness the scandalous burlesque of the situation given by the Wellington ‘ Post ’ and reproduced on page 1 of last night’s ‘Star’) —and some steps should be taken to'remove the ignorance, even if the malevolence has to be tolerated. It would be superfluous to recapitulate the issues of the question as stated by the speakers at the Town Hall. The}''had already been set forth at length in our leading columns; and, indeed, in nothing did Mr Allen, Mr Bathgate, and others show greater ability than in the air of freshness and vivid interest which they managed to impart to a twice-told tale. Three salient points have to be kept in view' when the full case is put before the Government. First, the proposed stoppage involves a flagrant breach of faith so far as the Teviot settlers and fruit-growers' arc concerned, and is fraught with incalculable injury to the material well-being of the district. Secondly, the stipulation that every railway should bo required to pay at least 3 per cent, on the cost of construction, ab initio, is a new and untenable doctrine, talcing no account of secondary conditions and the terms of co-relation, so to speak, between railway construction, land settlement, and other local industries. By the way, some of Mr Bathgate’s remarks concerning this aspect 'of the question were exceedingly valuable. Thirdly, it is practically certain that the. Lawrence-Rox-burgh lino, so far from proving “absolutely unpayable,” would show a satisfactory return on the capital account within a very few years of the" completion of the work. “ Information furnished ” not secretly to the Government/ but openly and explicitly to the meeting in the Town Hall—justifies Mr Allen’s contention that the line “ would pay hand- “ somely once it was through into the “district it was intended to tap.” Mr W. J. Tonkin, who knows what ho is talking about, observed last night :

It had been said that the line would not pay. Mr Blackmore, the Government Pomologist, estimated that the district produced 2,500 tons of fruit. The quantity that had been railed from Edievale during the past season, he calculated, had, at 6d per case, produced in railage £3,700. In five years that Would be doubled, if the railway were through, and if growers were charged 9d per case it would mean a revenue of £II,OOO to the Railway Department in a season on account of fruit growing alone.

That is a sample of the hard facts and figures which Sir Joseph Ward and Mr Roderick M‘Kenyie will have to meet. We mention Mr Roderick M ‘Kenziy, because there is somo reason to conjecture that the new Minister of Public Works is mainly responsible for the present trouble.