OUR RAILWAYS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 793, 16 April 1910, Page 13

OUR RAILWAYS.

THE MANAGEMENT CRITICISED. A VISITOR'S OPINIONS. Colonel J. Pollen, late of the Indian Civil Service and president of the British Esperanto Association, has some' thing of moment to say about our railway system. Hβ doee not disagree with the broad principle of State ownership, in fact goes as far as to say that the main lines should bo the property of the State. "What I do Bay, and say emphatically," said Colonel Pollen, "is that tho successful management of railways ib beyond the capacity of any. Government, least of all a democratic Government. Even the bureaucratic Government' of India were wise enough to see that, and re-entrusted tho '. management of main lines it had taken over to the companies which originally ran them, subject, of course, to the supervisory control of a body of three Commissioners. This had proved so successful that the branch lines were being placed under the management of these companies." "In a country like India," continued Colonel Pollen, "the danger of \State direction lay in the fact that every railway servant regarded himself as a Government official, and a result of that was that the interests of the public were not safeguarded as they should have been.' Under the present arrangement the managing companies have something at stake, something to lose by mismanagement, and they see that their clients —the public—are properly catered for, as is the case in every well-conducted business establishment.

"Tonr railway system is the one great thing in which New Zealand fails to. come up to her very excellent .reputation abroad. You have a 'tourist policy , —that .is you have tonrist bureaux here and elsewhere, and advertise the attractions of the country, but if you attract visitors with your.Tourist Department and distract them with your railway . system, it will mean that tourists will cease to com© to the Dominion in such numbers as they should do. .■'■••■

/"One thing I thought most curious in travelling on the trains. Approaching Wellington, the guard came in from time to time and demanded generally tickets of passengers who had boarded tho train at tho last station. Hβ did not go to individuals and demand their tickets, bo that anybody by keeping silent could have ridden free. A gentleman who was with me admitted the weakness .in tho 'ticket-collecting system, and stated of his own knowledge that fraud was practised by people who took advantage of it. "Another < matter came .under my notice only the other evening. At a certain station I found no official of any kind about. Soon after that a train stopped and . passengers got out, but still I could find no stationmaster, or any. other official to make any inquiries from. I made an appeal to the guard of the outward-bound train, asking from whom I could obtain certain information, but he said there was no one about the station. Perhaps the incident was,a small one, but l< have never known a railway station where people are boarding or alighting from trains to be without an, offioial of some kind or the other. . ■ ■■'

"I came down from Napier the other day, and arriving at Ngaio, only three or four miles from Wellington, we wore held up for over 20 minutes to allow some up-bound:'train to pass. In the time we waited at that station we .could have got into 'Wellington before tho other train left. Such incidents do not occur on trains run by business people'with an eye to tho main chance."