WHAT HON. J. A. MILLAR MAY DO.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 808, 4 May 1910, Page 6

WHAT HON. J. A. MILLAR MAY DO.

TOED IN AUSTRALIA. Speaking to a "Sydney Morning Herald" reporter op the eve of his return to tho Dominion, the Hon. J. A. Millar remarked: — "And now, if there's any further complaint about our management as compared with the Australian management, when I get hack. I'll tell you 'what I'll do. I'll simply publish our freight rates, our passenger rates, and onr wages scale in parallel columns alongside the Australian figures. I'm confident, as the result of my inquiries, that the New Zealand /freight rate is fully 15 per cent, lower than tho mean of the Australian rates, striking an all-round balance, servioe for service.' Class for class, and distance for distance, our passenger rates are about 10 per cent, lower than the average of Australian passenger Tates in the four States I'vo visited. And we pay wages considerably higher. I haven't yet got figures worked out to an exact comparison; but considerably. higher. In one or two causes, such as that of locomotivo engine-drivers, some Australian States pay higher wages to a limited number of mon; but taking the bulk of employees, there's no question of the higher wages and better conditions on our side. For one thing, our minimum wage for a married man is Bs. 3Jd. per day. Over here they start at 7s. "You know how Commissioners' management is held up for admiration by some newspapers in New Zealand., I come over to Sydney, and in nearly'every •paper I pick up I find complaints about Commissioners' management I'm not expressing any opinion, but ifs ovident that Commissioners' management doesn't succeed in pleasing all parties any more than Ministerial management. "In tho fonr States I've visited, I find that the control of the railways remains with the Ministers and Parliament, in spite of the Commissioners. From a Minister's point of view, the Commissioners seem to be considered a very good thing; they take over all tho burden of details, and they act as a buffer to relieve a Minister from unpopularity when things go wrong. At the same time a Minister lays down the railway policy. I don't see what is gained by taking away direct Ministerial control, when politics are left out of it and I!m pretty certain the people of New Zealand won't want to go back to Commissioners; they remember their past experience. "In New Zealand we try to run the railways not so mnch as a commercial speculation, but as an aid to the development of the country. I want to keep them up to. the point of paying their .full interest on capital, and we're nearly at that point now. After that, perhaps the best dividend they can earn is in the facilities they give to producers and others, and tho way they help the progress of tho country."