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Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XVII, Issue 998, 26 February 1887, Page 2

Atsythetg more utterly.idiotic than the recent railway regulations about parcels has.rarely been perpetrated/ even by a State department.- It is really most extraordinary that the." mana" of officialism is so powerful, in New Zealand that it seems able to paralyse common sense; even in an organisation haying such constant and intimate relations with the outside public as the Railway Department necessarily has. It evidently took all Sir Robert Stout's rare, sense of loyalty to his colleague to keep aim-up to the work

of palliating and exp 1 'ning away this absurd blunder to which waited on him in Ujpretter; and eVn then, in spite of his struggles, he coifid not help showing on bis .3y^pathwa.w t arrangements are an immense'convenience ..audi saving, to country people especially ; au'd-it is perfectly intolerable -thatiJtba.can^uct2rs % State monopoliss in the world "sliould •use}their power to crash out of existence an enterprise in the shape of a great public conveniene©,;the work of •which it "entirelyl'refusei to., perform itself. We know nothing of Mr Crust, ••or of the Newi Zealand Express ComP an y> this matter; but we ao know that the present parcels plan, works admirably and that 'the railway itself will comfortablyput a received parcel on the top shelf of a-Btore-ropm and leave it there for months, in some places, unless it is sent through the parcels'delivery com—pany.:; The railway people'sbould take a lesson from the great ocean steamship lines,' which' encourage precisely 'the same plan about parcils as our officials are. attempting to smash up, with the result of &n enormous convenience and economy to thousands of colonists; f doubt, however; the thing may be 2on;sidered not worth powder-aud shot-for Sir Robeet Stout may be pretty well relied on to settle the business conclusive! job/the •only rational lines.