ROTORUA-TAUPO LINE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18330, 30 July 1929, Page 11

ROTORUA-TAUPO LINE.

SIR JOSEPH WARD’S ATTACK. MR VAILE’S REPLY. To the Editor of the “Timaru Herald.” Sir, —Just how the Prime Minister obtained access to my private correspondence with his predecessor, I am at a loss to understand. Having got possessicm of the letter, it, of course, rested -with Sir Joseph Ward’s good taste and sense of what is gentlemanly or even decent, whether he should ijublish it. Everv line of the letter showed that it was a private communication intended for Mr Coates’s eye only. But the letter having been published, I have nothing to withdraw or apologise for, except that, labouring under a sense of bitter disapointment and injustice, I addressed the Prime Minister in a tone I regret having: used. However, Mr Coates was highminded enough not to resent this. And if he resolved to fulfil the promise | made more than a year previously, i who shall blame him? Be it noted that the promise was made not to me personally, but to a deputation. And I do not flatter myself that my letter had threepennyworth of influence. It is not correct that the railway was put in hand at once. It was not till a year afterwards, and at a time when I had been out of the Dominion for months. No reply to my letter was received by me, and from that day until my return to New Zealand in April of this year, I had no communication of any kind with Mr Coates, except a letter of introduction he was kind enough to send me. As to my work for the Reform Party, I am not in the least repentant. At that time the Seddon-Ward Government was extremely autocratic, and opposition was necessary. Sir Joseph Ward now assumes the same autocratic attitude, but without the same—or any—majority. At the time I assisted in the inception of the Reform Party, there was nothing to be gained but everything to be lost by opposing the all-powerful and seemingly permanent Seddon-Ward Government. At the time of my leaving Auckland (1908), Mr Massey—a leader with whom I am proud to have been intimately associated—was the president, and I was the working vice-presi-dent. Since then I have not even been a member of any branch of the Reform Party and have had nothing to do with politics, devoting all my energies to making the wilderness blossom as the turnip. At the time I was vice-president, Mr Coates was not a member of the party, and he knew nothing of my early activities. Sir Joseph Ward pretends to believe, and asks us to believe, that so soon as I informed Mr Coates of what I had done for the party from twenty to thirty years previously and scolded him for a bad boy, he prostrated himself and immediately ordered the construction of a railway for my sole benefit at a cost of £700,000. Sucn absolute nonsense? Sir Joseph seeks to condemn the Rotorua-Taupo Railway by dubbing it a political railway. That is the exact opposite of the truth. It commands no votes. Otherwise it would have been built many years ago. Its case is the case of the great waste spaces. My voice is the voice of one crying in the wilderness where no man is—but where many men are badly needed. Sir Joseph Ward is reported to have said that he did not know what I was. Well, he ought to know all about a wonderful person who orders Prime Ministers and Governments about, and has £700,000 thrown at him to placate him. But of course Sir Joseph well knows who and what I am—and is likely to know better. Would he like me to return the compliment he has paid me by publishing a private conversation I had with him at the time that I and the other land-owners of the district were offering a rate upon our lands to help in the construction of the railway? It would be tedious to follow Sir Joseph through all his misstatements. But I must challenge him on one point. Mr Parry interjected—“A couple of your Ministers thought the land was quite all right.” To which Sir Joseph replied: “I do not know anything about that.” The Prime Minuter professed to have referred this question to Sir Apirana Ngata and the Hons. Ransom, Forbes and Taverner, who were to make a thorough investigation, on the result of which the Government would act. Sir Apirana (who has for long been acquainted with the district) and the Hon. Ransom (who made a painstaking inspection) reported in favour of the railway. At the time of Sir Joseph’s decision, the Hon. Forbes had not been near the district, so his opinion could not have been counted. As to what opinion, if any, the Hon. Taverner expressed, I have no knowledge, but anyhow, his inspection was most hurried and perfunctory. Sir Joseph Ward also knows perfectly well that three successive Engineers-in-Chief of the Public Works Department—Messrs Blow, Holmes and Furkert —have recommended the construction of this railway and so has the present General Manager, Mr Sterling. Sir Joseph Ward’s statement that I sold a large area of my land after the railway was promised displays the same economy of truth as his other statements. I sold all my land (except less than one-fith of the original area, which I now farm) prior to May, 1925—more than two years previously. During the discussion, a cheap laugh was raised by the question whether I am a land-agent or not. I am not, but I formerly was, and am not in the least ashamed of the fact. I built up a great business of the highest character and standing. No single person who trusted his money to me for investment, or followed my advice, ever lost a penny. I sat severely on extreme values. It has often been remarked that the Rotorua-Taupo Railway can be condemned only by misrepresentation, prejudice, and ignorance. The member for the district reports that Sir Joseph has promised to afford our league all facilities for making its case before the committee which is to be set up. If he performs this promise it will redound greatly to his credit. Let us see what he actually does.—l am, etc., E. E. VAILE. “Broadlands,” Waiotapu, July 26th, 1929.