A MINISTER RUNS FOR COVER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17190, 6 November 1923, Page 6

A MINISTER RUNS FOR COVER.

There were some brilliant passages in the replies given by the Hon. .1. G. Coates to yesterday’s deputations on the subject of railway improvements and telephones. The most charitable view that can he taken of his utterances is that in the Carnival atmosphere of the city he found it difficult to keep his mind on the matters in hand. For instance lie favoured the telephone deputation with the assurance that “ there was no doubt that the readjustment of the telephone charges was on the basis that the user should pay more. ’ Now deputations do not want that sort of thing put across” when they go with a carefully prepared statement and ask for a reasonable reply lo il. And yet that is about the measure of the Minister's answers to all the questions put to him yesterday. No attempt has been made to challenge the accuracy of any ot the Progress League’s figures regarding the unfairness of the telephone increases. A reply was to have been given in the Budget, but the subject was not even referred to there. Yesterday the Minister said nothing whatever that was pertinent to the subject, and he will have to learn that the business community, who give so much valuable time to these matters, are too hard-headed not to knew when they are being childishly fobbed off with vague generalities. Obviously, there is no reply io the Progress League s contention, and (he Minister knows it. for he did not touch in the slightest detail on any of Ihe points raised by the deputation.