The Star. FRIDAY, JULY 20, 1883.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4749, 20 July 1883, Page 2

The Star. FRIDAY, JULY 20, 1883.

Sxbawcb Awomait— The efficient working of an expansive railway service being sacrificed in order to influence the direction of a few votes in Parliament ! Surely this is one of the moat serious ohargeg that could be made against any Government. Yet this is the conclusion forced upon tho General Committee of the East and West Coast Euilway league, and embodied by them in tho report published in our issue of yeEterday. 2 hr. ( ; report— it will be admitted by everyoieo who has taken the trouble to read it; -is a <3is ■ paeejjnate criticism up an the report of the Weßt Coaßt Bailway Commission appointed by the Government. It is admirable' in tone, searching in its analysis, and oruehing in its Biraply staled multe. Tbe document is invaluable : it should bo read and re-read by every resident in Canterbury. Its declarations should be treasured in the memory, and; thf y should be ueed, at the next general eleotion, ac touchstones to test the worth of every oandidute. The League Cjmmittce appear to have boen particularly struck with tlio "expert" evidence given by Mr Back, the looal Traffio Manager ; and they more than once designate that evidenoo as "ourioW It is sufficiently curiouß to warrant the conviction that nothing short of a revolution in the railway system of this Colony will briDg about satisfactory results. Under existing ciroumstances the ofEeials are saturated with what has been called Wellingtonism. Were tho railways to be freed from political control, this most objectionable element would in all probability ooze out rapidly from the fingerends of the officials, and they would accept with cslm resignation, even if they did not do bo con amors, the advent of an honest administration. Thoir preeent viows would undergo a remarkable change. Mr Baok " don't think a railway carriage osuld compete with a water carriage j" he thinks " limaru is a very good instance of that." Ihe League Committee do "not take the trouble to explicitly deny such a statement, which carries it own condemnation ; they eimply point out that it would not be politically convenient to make the Ljttel-ton-Timaru trade pay ; they state the strange anomaly whioh heads this artiole, and draw comfort from the fact that the members of the Royal Commission were " fortunately but little influenced by Mr Back's evidence," and therefore were bound to intimate to tbe Government " that sen carriage oould not compete luooeißfully with an East and West I Coast railway. . But there is another anomaly whioh I touohes at more nearly. Although— ac-

cording to the " curious " evidence of Iff Buck — railway carriage oaunot compet with wa'er carriage, the railway it mad* to carry limber from Invercwgill to Ashburton, and lime from Milburn (8(* miles louth of Dunedin) to Ohristohureh. Ii this done to benefit Canterbury • BTo* mucli ! Buoh heroio sacrifice is not needed here "to influence the direotion of » few rotta ia Parliament." Canterbury lose* heavily by the operation, for the working of her lime-kilns bas in ooxuequouoe had to be> abandoned. In brief, Cinterbury'i poeition is thii:— > She ii made "to contribute to the geEeral* exchequer an annual surplus railway revenue of about £50,000," in order to bolster np political job lines that never have paid into* rest o* their cost, and probably never will t bar industries &r» orippled or stamped out a» a matt»r of " political convenience j" aho hai been deprived of her allotmont ia respect of loan expenditure to the tune of one million five hundred thousand pounds j ond to crown all, she ii abandoned by her " representatives," for the moit part, to the blightinginfluence of Wellingtoni«m— a ijstem that is, ia her c&ie, oomparable only to the vampirtv tradition of Hungary, or the werwolf superstition of the French peasantry.