The Press Tuesday, November 18, 1924. Railway Finance.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18233, 18 November 1924, Page 8

The Press Tuesday, November 18, 1924. Railway Finance.

Most people in New Zealand ha% e realised by now ihat there no future for the Liberal Party, but in some Liberal quarters it is evidently felt that there may be some profit in saying that under the Liberal regime cvervthing went well, and that under the Reform Government everything lias gone to rack and ruin. Yesterday, for example, the local organ of what is left of the Liberal Party went to enormous trouble to show that the present Government is responsible for any deterioration of the financial position of the railways as a whole, and also for the failure of the South Island lines to yield as good a return on invested capital as is yielded by the North Island lines. It develops this theory with that disregard for accuracy which has always been st striking feature of Liberal criticism. "Fifteen "years ago," it says, the percentages earned were so and so. Fivo years later, it adds, the percentages had risen by something or other, and these fivo years, it says, were the last five years of the Liberal Administration. Its roadars are asked to believe, that is to say, that the Liberal Administration came to an end in 1914. Now, it is impossible that any Liberal diehard can ever forget that his party was dismissed from office in 1912; and it is accordingly clear that our contemporary was talking at random. In tho last Railways Statement statistics for 22 years are given—from 1902-3 to 1923-4. The first ten of these years were the last ten years of the Liberal Party's rule, and the average of the interest earned in this period was 3.5 per cent. The average for the twelve years of the Reform Administration is 3.8 per cent. These facts are accessible and known to Liberals, and if one did not know the liberty which the Liberal apologist allows himself in dealing with facts, one would wonder how any rational creature could attempt to prove tha opposite of what is known to be the fact. An improvement in the management of the railways is greatly desirable, but it is not likely to be assisted oither by such Liberal absurdities as wo have mentioned or by the suggestion, which is also made by the Liberal paper, that the failure of the Southern lines to show as good a profit as th* Northern lines is tho fault of the present Government. The fact is that for a great many years no Government has been able or willing to make any impression on the Railway Head Office, which has been as near a thing to an uncontrolled despotism —whether, under Seddon or "Ward or Millar or Herries or Guthrie—as any public Department could be. Mr Coates has succeeded in stirring up tho Department, and tho Government has set on foot a longneeded overhaul of the system, and they are deserving of praise for having done so. The Government has certainly been slow in taking steps to cure the rail' ways of the disease for which the old Liberal Administration was responsible, but it has at any rate acted at last.