A LITTLE TEST.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 372, 2 November 1889, Page 2

A LITTLE TEST.

Gisborne people are not much interested in railways, because the “iron horse” is unknown in the district so far as passenger traffic is concerned. But we can meekly admire the Auckland agitators) who want fares reduced and other alterations made at an expense a share of which has to be borne by such unfortunate districts as our own. Those persons who constitute what is known as the Railway League, want the Commissioners to give a trial to a railway system known as Vaile’s. The Copimissioners were quite able to “ take the measure ” of these irresponsible agitators, and their reply is a most significant one. They could hardly get away from the usual official routine, and therefore asked to be supplied with further details, just with the same spirit of “ cussedness ” that some of our own local bodies used to reply to the oftrepeated claims of a certain discoverer of road metal by asking him for further details. But the Railway Commissioners made at least a portion of their reply straight to the point. They would make any experiments these agitators desired provided the latter gave a guarantee against loss to the railways. Of course the agitators got highly indignant, but that sort of froth soon fizies out. The Commissioners are to be commended for taking up the straightforward line they did, and'thore is at least a small amount of satisfaction in knowing that though isolated districts like our own must con, tinue to share the burden of railways that are worked at a loss, there is no probar bility of the Commissioners allowing the burden to be increased by making the railways the subject of a series of experiments just to please a few people whose fads are pressed upon us without concern for business principles. Directly these Auckland agitators are put to the test by being asked for a guarantee, their eagerness is changed into mock loyalty for the interests of the colony.