FOR THE COUNTRY'S GOOD.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 89, 19 August 1913, Page 5

FOR THE COUNTRY'S GOOD.

MT. EG MONT LINE. [To The Editor Stratford Post.] Sir, —I would like you to give me space in your valuable paper for a few remarks on the Mt. Egmont railway. If Mr Seddon had lived, and Mr Hall-Jones bad been Minister of Public Works, this important railway would have been a great success. Largo quantities of stone would have been available, and local bodies would not bo hampered for metal as they are at the present time. I am given to understand that the Railway Department are going to monopolise this line for their own use, which is wrong in principle. There is plenty of metal for all purposes, and the country cannot afford to pay £SOOO per year interest for the small amount of stone and ballast required by the railways. There seems to be a doubt as to whether this metal can be won cheaper than the local bodies can procure it elsewhere. Have the local bodies ever sent their experts to inspect these quarries for the purposes of estimating the cost of procuring metal? I think not. There has been apathy and prejudice, as there still is. In these days when the country is run by Commissions and Commissioners, and Ministers are too pleasure-seeking or incapable of running their different departments without shouldering the responsibilities on some one else, it would he as well to set up a commission to look into this matter. The work of completing the Mt. Egmont Railway line is going along very slowly. It must surely be the shortness of money. Last election wo were told about the great reforms that were to be brought about.by the great Reformers that constitute the Government of to-day; but they forgot to toll us that we would have to wait for these until after the battle of Armageddon, in fact until the rnillenium, when there would not he any fighting over the Treasury Benches or electioneering tactics. These Reformers are a warlike people—reformers generally are. If we asked them to send ton thousand soldiers to the Soudan to fight the Dervishes, or if we asked them to buy a cruiser, a torpedo or two, a submarine or a destroyer, would they find the money? By jingo, yes. We have got the men, we can get the ships, and we can got the money too. If wo asked them for money for public works so that railways could he pushed along to make them interestearning, or if the local bodies asked them for money for road-making purposes, which would he interesthearing, could they get it No! These Reformers would put- on their coat of many colours and sing us that com - mon old refrain, “Wait till the Clouds Roll By.”—l am, etc., W. L. BLAIR.