SIMPLE ADVICE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1199, 22 February 1895, Page 18

SIMPLE ADVICE.

Mst propritim stultitiak alidnlnl cernere vttia, obliinsci siioriirtt. TO THE EDITOR. Sliß,—The railways belong to the cor.ntry, the,country belongs to the people, the Government represent the country and the people, I, as one of the people who elect the Government, am therefore part owner of the railways, and claim to have a voice in their administration. I don't know anything whatever about railways, and I don't pretend to; that, however, qualifies me to write with assurance about them, as I notice that those egotists who know least always say most, and as a rule those persons who make conspicuous failures of their own little tin-pot business are most pro- I minent in their hypercritical criticism of big concerns. The management of a railway is a very ordinary affair—a mere bagatelle that a.ny lunatic outside of an asylum can manage off-hand. That's why New South Wales gives Eddy .£4OOO and expenses a year. If an occasional train runs five minutes late all sorts of inspirations are advanced to account for it. One says it's the "block" that does it. Well/ if the block doesn't block trains, what is it for? Sometimes I wonder where imbecility ends and insanity Logins. Another fellow—apparently who has his liberty—says the stationmasters should be allowed to alter train crossings, regardless of the manager. He's a humorist, probably an undertaker with a dull business, or may be he has an interest in some land adjoining Karori Cemetery, and wants to cause an overflow in that direction. I'm an Oppositionist, and therefore against the Government. By throwing mud at Government institutions I imagine that I am bespattering the Government, and that gladdens my little soul. '» The Government have no right to build railways over mountains so steep that the trains have to crawl up on their hands and knees, nor to make lines so like corkscrews that riding over them makes you feel as if you had been trifling with a bottle ; nor have they any right to carry goods on the same trains as passengers ; although it. is economical, it tends to make trains run late. Let us have passenger trains for passengers, goods trains for goods, carry people for nothing, and never mind the cost —we want this, let us have it. Posterity can .pay if we cannot; don't let us. consider posterity, posterity has done nothing for us, we have done a lot for posterity, look what a grand debt we are leaving it. Now, Messieurs the Government, do your best to adopt all the expert suggestions offered to you, and like the man, the boy, and the ass, in the end you'll please no one and lose your ass into the bargain.—l am, &c, .. E.J.E.