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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 71

From H. C. McCormick. Farmer. Waitahuna

From H. C. McCormick. Farmer. Waitahuna.

Referring to your circular re Management of Railways of this colony, asking my opinion as to whether our Railways should be managed as at present, by a non-political board, or be banded over to the tender mercies of the New Zealand Parliament, as that body is at present constituted. My fixed Belief is this (based on common sense and observation of certain incidents that occurred here during the late strike) that the less our Parliament have the power to meddle with, the better for the country at large. A large proportion of these men have no direct interest or stake in the working of our Railways, or in fact in any other matter affecting the welfare of this colony. The receipt of their yearly screw, and the supposed prestige and little peddling patronages the position of member carries with it, constitutes their whole Alpha and Omega. Generally speaking, many of them are beneath either criticism or contempt, and to hand over the working of a most important branch of the public service to be made a political football of among such men would be little short of madness.