TAUPO RAILWAY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 253, 24 September 1929, Page 7

TAUPO RAILWAY.

EVIDENCE BY MR E. E. VAILE. NO POLITICAL INFLUENCE. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Sept. 24. Concluding his evidence at the Taupo Railway inquiry, Mr E. E. Vaile admitted to Mr Makitanara that he had been for 22 years a land agent at Auckland. A further question as to whether he bought his 50,000 acres of Taupo land for speculative purposes was disallowed. He denied that he had used political influence with the late Government in connection with the railway;

“f he had none to use anyhow. /dM Replying to Mr Kyle, he said that Wit! he had hoped by offering the land to •■MI the Government at its present value, contingent on the railway going through, to divest himself of any per- ■ ' 'Ssi sonal interest in the construction of ■'■'M the Fine, but as it had been suggested >s£ that the offer was discreditable to himself he now wished to withdraw it. 'dm Mr H. R. Jenkins, M.P., said he Mi, took off his hat to Mr Vaile as a jlii'i'A pioneer who had gone into the wilderness and made a garden of it. ®Sf|, Replying to Mr R. Semple, Mr Vgile said that between Rotorua and Taupo there might be 100 votes so that from the voting point of view the polltical influence was absolutely ml. Since ll Mpfie left Auckland in 1908 he had con- >■' tributed absolutely nothing to the Re®Kr form Party funds. There were no Reform supporters in the area concerned fw- able to make big contributions, and in the last election the Reform Party A had only the support of the minority •"•M'lpthere. It was a pure invention to ififaKay that the railway was a political -SleSone. He could not see how his offer 4sjito sell his property for £30,000 could bo construed into an inducement to •> : the Government to build a line costing :A. 4:70,000.