WELLINGTON NOTES.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16448, 2 June 1919, Page 3

WELLINGTON NOTES.

OUR MINISTERS IN EUROPE. WHY THEY HAD TO GO. BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT. WELLINGTON, May 31. There has been a good deal said about the two leaders being at Home, stated the Hon. W. D. S. MacDonald. They say there was no necessity for them to go. Our progress and development and future are absolutely bound up in the Pacific routes, and if we do not have them open to carry our produce then we cannot make progress. Our representatives wont Home with the representatives of the other overseas Dominions to see those routes were safeguarded and no fortifications were erected to threaten them; but, even if we left out commercialism altogether, for the sake of the men who fought and died, from a historic point of view, the country should have had representatives at that great Imperial Conference. THE RAILWAY STAFF. Speaking of the railway staff, Mr. E. Hiley, late General Manager for Railways, said ho was quite confident from what he had seen of the staff that, given the facilities, they would be able to carry out tho work as efficiently as any railway staff. They should have the opportunity of education in railway work. He had discussed the matter often with Mr. M'Villy and he knew it was the latter’s intention to pick out a number and give them an opportunity of obtaining a more all-round knowledge of general railway practice than was' possible for them to get in the ordinary routine of business. “I hope and I believe it is Mr. M'Villy’s intention to recommend the selection of younger men who have proved themselves to be allotted to study to study railway practice in England and America, where tho problems of denser traffic and the higher problems of railways are more obvious than in New Zealand.” If he happened to be in England when it was found possible to arrange for men to be sent Home he would regard it as a pleasure if he could be of any assistance in effecting* arrangements with the English railway companies.