Railway Administration.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16148, 28 February 1918, Page 6

Railway Administration.

Canterbury lias some special grounds for complaint against the Government in tho matter of railway communications and railway administration, and it is not surprising, therefore, that railway matters were freely discussed by the Chamber of Commerce yesterday. Examples were quoted to show tho difficulty experienced in inducing the Railway- Department to remedy glaring defects in administration and to remove sources of loss and inconvenicncc. ■ In one case the Department was charged with sending to the Chamber a most unsatisfactory reply entirely at variance with facts. In the case of the Christchurch-Lyttelton service, the Department is charged with having deliberately attempted to mitigate the benefits of the partly-restored service by reducing the rate at which j trucks are unloaded into ships. Facts like these, and a long experience of Departmental blundering and obstinacy, have strained the patience of local business men to breaking point, and hayo led to the suggestion that the whole matter of railway administration ought to be enquired into by some independent committee or commission. If the experience of other parts of New Zealand is at all like Canterbury's experience, and it cannot be very different—since one can hardly imagine that the Department reserves for Canterbury's annoyance its obstinacy and its opposition to progressive ideas—it is high timo that the Government set about effecting some improvement. "When it was decided to bring

in an expert railway manager from England, there was a general feeling that tho unsatisfactory and unprogiessivo management of our railways would come to an end. In 6ome respects, no doubt, improvements have been effected, but Mr Hiley lias not succeeded in removing the cardinal defects of tho management, which is in essentials just as unsatisfactory as ever it was. | Mr Hiley appears to have withdrawn into the background, with the result that officials whoso unprogrcssivo methods people had grown tired of have been freo to continuo in the old groove. Whether these old hands have been too much for tho general manager, or whether the fault lies with tho 'Minister, wo do not undertake to say, but the results are deplorlable, and it is as true as over it was that the Department treats tho public's interest and convenience as of little or no importance. There can be no improvement, wo aro afraid, until the Ministerial control of the Department becomes an active guardianship of the public interest, attentive to the public's needs, and firm in resisting the Department's tendency to cling to its slow, obstinate, and unprogressive policy. There is no public Department j less amenable to reform, but wo have lately seen, in the partial restoration of tho Christchurch-Lyttelton service, that persistent agitation can break through tho defences even of the Railway Head Office. The success of that agitation will, of course, encourage the Arthur's Pass Tunnel League to keep vigorously at work. It ought also to , encourage tho Chamber of Commerce <£> press for a reform of the Railwav I Department's methods. This is not a j question of improving tho railway sys-llem-for which Mr Hiley drew "up a good and comprehensive plan beforo

the war came along to prevent any extensive outlay on tho existing lines and stations —but of improving the administrative methods of every day. These methods have cost the country a great sum of money, and have caused endless embarrassment and inconvenience to the suffering public. Reform is urgently required, and persistence in demanding it. , The other day tho Victorian State Railway employees made a request for an hicrcase in pay, and they received an unfavourable reply from the Minister. In refusing the request he enumerated the privileges of the men, and mentioned also that in Australia to-day living is better and cheaper than in most- parts of the civilised world. Somo comments upon this in tho Melbourne "Argus" seem to indicate that there is developing in Australia something like the resentment which is felt in Xcti- Zealand at tho importunity of the State's employees. ''The continuity of employment which Government employees enjoy," it pointed out, "is a factor of inestimablo value, but they resolutely shut their eyes to the privilege. It is really one of tho conditions which make economical management difficult, and which lender discipline and efficiency almost impossible. In tho West Australian Parliament recently Mr Pilkington, K.C., declared that the time had arrived when statutory protection should be withdrawn from specially favoured classcs of men in Government employment. If men are perpetually emphasising their 'rights,' they will forco the public to consider its rights also." Not much has been hoard lately in this country concerning the increased cost of living, and the only possible inference from this fact is that the clamour of tho past was mainly artificial. If the price of broad and of the necessaries of life generally were really oppressive, wo should hear something very different from an occasional brief uproar engineered by a few idle agitators, New Zealanders have, as a matter of fact, very little to complain of. A couple of days ago a cable message mentioned that the American Government had fixed the price of 1918 wheat at 220 cents, or over 9s a bushel. Wheat was at that prico in Chicago in September last, as was pointed out tho other day in a report by the Australian Interstate Commission on the price of bread. Tho Commission mentioned in its report, by the way, that although bread, is popularly spoken of as if it were an index to the general cost of living, its part in the weekly bill of the household is much overrated. The avcrago consumption of broad in Australia is 41b per head per week, and tho difference of a penny in tho price of a loaf would therefore make a difference of only one penny a week per head in the average household. « Some curious statements in a speech by Mr Hughes, tho Australian Primo Minister, at Bendigo last Saturday week, have caused somo comment, and given rise to some speculation concerning tho possibility of the National Government breaking up. Ho said that there were some people who were forgetting tho thinness of the crust that separated them from the alternative to tho National Government—government by tho Labour Party. "The seeds of disintegration," he went on, "aro being sown in the party. There are reactionaries who seek to use the party for their own purposes. Some of them aro wealthy men. Members of tho party have to choose whether they will become tools of a section or not. I am not going to be made a tool of any scction. If I have to submit to domination I will have the domination of thoso with whom I grew up." Mr Hughes was sharply reminded by some critics of this "dangerous and mischievous" utterance —which came just after tho exposure of the bungling in the Defence administration —that he had received loyal support from the Liberals, and that he was not entitled to mako any imputations of a general kind. Our own opinion is that, after breaking his pledge to leave offico, Mr Hughes should have no feeling save one of gratitude for thoso who for tho time being savod his political life.