THE GOVERNMENT AND THE RAILWAYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8927, 16 December 1887, Page 5

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE RAILWAYS.

[BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

ChristchdbOh, Thursday. The Press, commenting on the Government Railways Bill, says : " The general oonviction is that the country is likely to be better served by a Board of Commissioners than by political management. Tbe change will at any rate have one most important result. It will tend to purify Parliament and relievo the Government of a good deal of preesure of a most objectionable kind. The political influence of the railways was never more conspicuously shown than during the late general election. Several good men lost their seats on account of the railway vote, while during the present session tho pernicious influence of the Railway was constantly making itself felt. The removal of the control to a Board will relieve the House from that influence. Let us hope that in other respects the change will be equally satisfactory." The Lyttolton Times Bays that the Public Works Statement is a business-like document—full, clear, unpretentious, and unadorned. It adds: "The only -things remarkable about the Statement are two, and they are very remarkable. Tbe Minister makes good the tapering-off promised by the Financial Statement, and blows the prospects of the North Island Trunk hallway to smithereens." As to the tapering-off, the Times contends that the statement only does what the late Government would have done, and it then continues, " The manner in which the tapering-off has been apportioned among the various districts is very fair and impartial. We might have had tbe .Sunnier Railway on the schedule, and then there would have been nothing to complain of, but there seems no chance that this line may find a place on the schedule. After all Canterbury defers complaint for the preeent. For the rest, we can only say that every railway that has been stopped seems to have been stopped at the right point, and that for every work which has been made a Govern-. menu concern, good reasons have been advanced. The fate of the North Island Trunk line is very suggestive. Is this a country in which great publio works, costing millions of money, are made the football of party ? A ' fair and reliable' estimate was given by the engineer of the Department to Mr. Richardson when the Government wanted to mike this railway. ' A fair and reliable* estimate is given to Mr. Mitohelaon by the engineers of the Department, when his Government does not aeem to care very much about the .railway. The singularity of these respective estimates is that each suits Its Minister. Perhapa it is only a coincidence that two Ministers got the estimates they required. Certainly when we consider that the whole of the railways of New Zealand have not cost much over £8000 per mile, we must feel real respect for the estimates of the engineers. In a system of 1700 miles they have not been very far off in their estimates, but that makes the error of one million in an estimate of two million still more remarkable than it appears at firet sight, and that ie saying a very great deal. Such a discrepancy ought to be inpossible on any part of the earth's surface under anything like a passably decent railway system. Primarily the matter concerns the iN orth Island more than it concerns the South, and if any of the aggrieved Northerners feel rliaaatisticil with the estimate, all they have to do Iβ to follow the example of tho West Coast Railway League, and equip an expedition to oheok the work of the Government engineers. Nothing elae will induce Parliament to take a view different from the view entered upon by Mr. Mitchelson in the Publio Works Statement. At the same time nothing else will enable the public to decide between the two rival estimates, and nothing at all will explain satisfactorily to the public the reason why there should be suoh an enormous discrepancy. The discrepancy is the worst thing that has come out of our publio works system for years. By all means let us have non-political construction (including survey) as well as non'political management."