THE COLONIST. Published Every Morning. Wednesday. May 17, 1911. THE OPUNAKE RAILWAY

Colonist, Volume LIII, Issue 13108, 17 May 1911, Page 2

THE COLONIST. Published Every Morning. Wednesday. May 17, 1911. THE OPUNAKE RAILWAY

Thk Hon. R. McKenzie is being very severely taken to task by our Conservative friends over a remark he is reported to have dropped in Taranaki the other day when replying to a deputation which urged tho necessity for commencing the much talked of Opunake railway. The Minister of Public Works was bombarded by deputations on the subjept of the railway during his visit to the garden province, and fco one of them he> is reported—correptly or incorrectly—to have ma4e the remark, "How can you expec£ a railway when you return Opposition members, and the Opposition is ajways protesting against borrowing?" Whiph appalling question, it appears, coming on top of the reassuring declaration that the Opunake railway was one of £he first that had a claim on the taxpayer/3, struck the deputation dumb,. In the fury jnto >yhiph tfyey have lashed themselves over the enormjty of Mr McKeozie's offence, the ultra-Cpn-servat^ve organs are bHnded to the poss(bj}ij;y that the remark of the Minister, jf it was reajly uttered, might be capable of a very different interpretation from that placod upon it by critics who find in a Minister's every action and utterance some excuse for complaint of innuendo. To such people any Ministerial remark suggesting ambiguity or capable of mis-application is a source of rare dolight and satisfaction. Should a Minister permit himself to jocularly remind a district of its inconsistency in at once deprecating and demanding heavy expenditure qi loan money, it is a glaring instance of Tammany stalking forth naked and un^hamed. jf he agrees with a deputation upon the necessity for the ca.rying out of the work iv which it is sought to enll§t his sympathies, he is fiercely denounced for attempting to placate the electors with doles from the public purse. And should he differ from the deputation and decline to consider their request 3 then his conduct amounts to a gross abuse of his powers, and meets with unmeasured condemnation. Any pretext for a row. In the present tote

an attempt is being made to manufacture a very grave charge against Mr McKenzie and the Government out of what was, if it occurred at all, a very trivial incident, in all probability a jocular remark. In the matter of railway construction Taranaki has very little to complain of. The StratfordMain Tnirik line, the importance of which far transcends that of the projected Opunake branch, is making excellent progress, and by the end of the present year the rails are expected to reach Whangamomona, a hinterland township fifty miles east of Stratford, opening up a great extent of country. There has also been a heavy expenditure in the last few years on the Mt. Egmont branch line, which junctions with the main line at Waipuku, and rendeirs the stone deposits of the mountain available for road making purposes throughout the province. The necessity for the construction of a railway to provide an outlet other than by road or sea for the produce of the Opunake district has long been recognised, but the policy of the Government has been to concentrate its efforts on the linos already in hand, and complete the trunk lines before undertaking new works. Taranaki has always been given to understand that the Opunake railway must wait until the public works programme is less congested. There has never.been any suggestion that the line has been hung up for political purposes, and the attitude of- the Government was the same when the four Taranaki seats wore held by Liberals as it is now when Oppositionists are in possession. In Taranaki itself the question is viewed from a purely parochial standpoint. It has given free play to the jealousy and antagonism which so curiously distinguish the relations of town towards town, and district towards district in Taranaki. While the whole province is at one in regarding the line as a necessity, no two places are of the same mind with regard to the route it should follow. It is not very long ago since the Primei Minister, when visiting Taranaki, received on one day three deputations, all calling for an early commencement of the line, but each recording its conviction that it could not be constructed to the best advantage on the route claimed by either of the others to be the most suitable.