WEST COAST (MIDDLE ISLAND) RAILWAY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume II, Issue 112, 11 May 1881, Page 2

WEST COAST (MIDDLE ISLAND) RAILWAY.

In another column we reprint an article which appeared in the New Zealand Mail of the 23rd April, the concluding paragraph of which runs as follows: — "What the result may be will probably not much concern Mr. Foy now, but it very much concerns the credit of the Department, and the interests of the colony." We can. inform our contemporary that it does concern Mr. Foy very much; that no sooner did he see the article which we reprint elsewhere, than he communicated with Mr. Charles Telverton O'Connor, from whom he received the following reply by M telegraph : — " In reply to your letter, I do not concur in the least in what Mr. Browne has said of your survey of Lewis Saddle, and in fact I entirely disagree with him, and have told him so most distinctly, and had I been at liberty to do so, I would have written to the newspapers to that effect. As I was not at liberty to do this, however, the- only thing I can do is to contradict him in my report, and this I will do ; but meantime you are quite at liberty to state, on my authority, that his assertions regarding your survey were made entirely without my concurrence, and that I entirely disagree with him.— o. T. O'Connor." Our contemporary must have but a poor opinion of professional men, when it asserts that the grave charges brought against Mr. Foy cannot have much concern for a man who has grown gray in the service of various Governments ; whose name has been successfully associated with one of the greatest surveys of modern times — that of the Central Indian Railroad ; and whose professional reputation is dearer to him than the enolunents which it brings. We do know a little about this West Coast Railway, and we can see no earthly reason why Mr. Foy should have furnished "fake data." Had he done so, there were other engineers engaged in the same work, and it is more than probable that they would have exposed it long before now, if there was anything crooked about it. Mr. Foy needs no stronger refutation of the charges brought against him by the company's engineer (Mr. Browne) than that contained in Mr. Charles Telverton O'Connor's letter. As a professional man, the latter gentleman holds a foremost place ,• and those who have known Mr. O'Connor will not doubt for one moment that he has the courage to give expression to his opinions, and that he has told nothing but the simple truth in this instance. We hope that our contemporary will as readily publish .Mr. O'Connor's telegram as it did the statement of Mr. Browne, and that it will have the manliness to acknowledge that it has — unwittingly or otherwise — cast a slur upon a professional gentleman, "who has done the State some service," but who, nevertheless, is far from enjoying the comforts which wealth brings with it. Had Mr. Foy cared less for the public service, and more for his own personal aggrandisement, the strictures of our contemporary might have had some force. As it is, they are ungenerous and uncalled for, and ought to be unhesitatingly withdrawn.