NEW RAILWAYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20300, 6 July 1929, Page 12

NEW RAILWAYS.

The selection of the Minister of Labour to follow the Leader of the Opposition in the Address-in-Reply debate placed Mr. Veitch in an embarrassing difficulty, because, in attempting to defend the Government's railway proposals, he had to recant the very definite opinions he had expressed as a private member as recently as last September. The report of his speech, with its disparagement of a former engineer and chief executive of the department, contains a sufficient exposure of his failure to discover a convincing case for Sir Joseph Ward's programme. One point to which he gave' emphasis may not be generally appreciated. Mr. Veitch said the report of the Fay-Raven Commission recommended that nearly £13,000,000 should be spent on new lines over a period of eight years, and since that report had been adopted by the Coates Ministry, the latter was committed to a greater expenditure than "only £10,000,000 on the completion of main lines." It would be a poor argument, even if the premises were not false. The Coates Ministry was not committed to every item in the Fay-Raven report and that famous document did not recommend spending £13,000,000 on new lines. All it did was to make a forecast of the financial situation ten years ahead. In the absence of precise data, it assumed that 660 miles of railways for which estimates were given in the Public Works Statement would be completed in ten years, but it did not say all those lines should be built. Indeed, Mr. Veitch has risked a reprimand by quoting this passage as at "recommendation" since the Prime Minister has been striving to prove that the Fay-Raven report did not recommend any other railway than the South Island line. Mr. Veitch's speech might better have been used to explain his advocacy of an expenditure of "only £10,000,000" so soon after his warning to Parliament last year that "there are many reasons why responsible men should pause before deciding to lay down more new railways anywhere in New Zealand," especially because motor competition showed "how unwise it is for this country to launch out now on a huge scheme of railway development." He might also have told the House whether he still considers, as he did last August, that tho Gisborne line should not be started until the alternative routes had been surveyed, to enable a sound decision to be reached ; and generally that the final approval of railways to be undertaken should rest with Parliament, not with the Government. As a private member, Mr. Veitch pleaded for caution, for the protection of the Railways Department and the security of the national finances. If his conversion to the spending of £lo,ooo,ooQ'in three or four years, chiefly on lines that have not been even surveyed, is based not merely on faith but "purely on economic grounds," it is unfortunate that he did not seizo the opportunity to impart similar enlightenment to his sceptical audience in Parliament and throughout the country.