ARE SPIES USED?

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 11111, 8 May 1911, Page 6

ARE SPIES USED?

ON THE RAILWAYS.

ESPIONAGE ON THE GUARDS. THEIR LOT UNENVIABLE. STRONG FEELING OF THE MEN. The dissatisfaction which has existed amongst the railway guards on the Auckland section owing, it is stated, to the adoption of a system of espionage, and the employment of private detectives, is not confined to that particular section. There is considerable feeling in local railway circles— ■especially amongst the guards and ticket ■collectors—at what they describe as indignity which they are subjected to by ■the alleged action of the Department in making use of a ■ spy to travel on tho trains of the Wellington section, and report on littlo technical breaches of tho ■regulations. In commenting on this, tho official organ of the Amalgamated Society of Railway. Servants, says: "The railway Department has at last become dissatisfied with its ticket , system, and. has been moved to do something. AVo could have guessed instantly that the officials would not allow their precious system to fall without endeavouring to find a scapegoat outside their own infallible circle, so that wp quite expected to hear of the serious complaints which have come from many guards on the North Island sections alleging that the Department is endeavouring to trap them into committing an offence against tho regulations by allowing spies to travel free." It is now held by railwaymen that the existence of such secret agents is not a myth. They state that they have proved conclusively that there is such a person. One official, when questioned on the subject, gayo a personal description of the •man, and further told his name.' A number of guards, when questioned on the subject by a Dominion reporter, detailed ■at some length the modus operandi adopted. " ' . ■- Tho System of Espionage. Here is an alleged example. Ho takes a ticket to Ngahauranga by one of our crowded suburban trains. When a guard comes round in an endeavour to check nine or ten crowded cars in tho few minutes which elapse before tho train reaches that station, the secret agent makes a point of producing his ticket. It is well known that it is exceedingly difficult to check that train moro than once. So he is carried from Ngahauranga on to Petone or Lower Hutt. He immediately reports the circumstances to headquarters, and tho guard receives a "Please explain" memo., couched in something like the following terms: "Please explain why you allowed a certain passenger to travel from Ngahauranga to Petone (or Lower Hutt as the case may bo) without collectijg his fare." Several guards have, it is stated, received communications of this kind.

Then, again, there is a regulation which ordains that a guard when he issue£ a ticket must issue it in the presence of the passenger. When a guard has a number of these- tickets to issue it is sometimes the case that neither time nor circumstances permit him to follow out tho regulations. He often collects- tho fares, and subsequently issues the tickets. Again'thero comes the demand for an explanation why he did not issue these tickets to the persons concerned in their presence. He himself knows that if he endeavoured to issue a. dozen or so of those tickets (especially on crowded suburban trains nnd v.-lv»re the stations are only separated by a running interval of a few minutcsl the train would be in nt the station while he was so occupied, and a number of people would leave, some of them without oven having been c.nllpcl on to show tickets or pay fares. Thnt misht mean further demands for explanation.

How People "Beat the Railways."

The reporter was further given to understand that at a meeting of the local branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (held on Sunday) mem-, bers , spoke strongly of the action taken up by the Department. It was denied that "it was necessary to send spies on the railways to demonstrate the weaknesses, of the present system of checking and collectine tickets. To anyone who was unscrupulous enough to attempt it, there were many ways of "beating the railways." A person who held a ■twelretrip or fifty-trip ticket between Te Aro and Kaiwarra was a case in point. Ihere was a regulation which stated that ihese tickets must not be punched between Te Aro and Lambton. There was nothing then to prevent tbe holder of such a ticket from riding from Te Aro to Lambton Station every' morning without paying anything. 'Previously the regulation stated that the tickets must be punched between Te Aro and Lambton. \\hen that was so a person might get on at Lambton. and, when asked for his ticket, would produce it. and say that it had already been punched, thereby evading payment of his fare. When the holder of a season ticket happened to forget it any morning he was obliged to pay his fare, hut, on making application, he could have the amount refunded. But what guarantee had a guard or the Department got that somebody else was not using it?

Guards—Their Ordeals,

An example was given of a cass which occurred on Sunday, March 31. About a dozen people got on at a wayside station on the Jlanawatu line. The tickets throughout the train had been collected, and some of these newcomers, when tho demand for "Fares, please," was called, merely sat still, and made no response. It was a big train, and, naturally, neither tbe "uard nor his assistant could identify them, but they knew that somebody was cheating them, and they had no convenient way of discovering the offend-

ers- , t Nor were -these the only examples of how tho payment of fares'liiiglit be avoided. It was stated that tho Department are losing heavily, but, as one man stated, "They have consistently set their faces against granting any assistance to guards even when it has been applied for. Tho traffic manager possibly recognises that a great deal of'this sort of thing is going on, as. in a circular, he recommends guards to make "surprise checks' of ticket*. But again the inevitable regulation crop; up. There is a regulation which states that guards and ticket collectors mu»t not unduly harass passengers by asking them to produce thentickets ou more than one or two occasions during the same jonrney. Considering tho Guard's multifarious duties he can hardly be held to blame. Under the system now in vo«ue he is a ticket-seller, cashier, book-keeper, porter, shunter, signalman, and the general slave of the public. It was further shown that, these discrepancies must continue to exist (on suburban lines, at any rate) until a better system is devised. The present method is a sufficient check on long-dis.taut-0 trains, but, on a suburban line, it. fails. One member (at the meeting mentioned) went on to say that tho present state of affairs would exist until the barrier system was adopted. By this method passengers pay beforo they go on to tho station from which they take their departure, ann produce their ticket at tho station at which they get off. In addition, there is the conductor, who sees that everyone in the train has tickets. It' is understood that a deputation of tho A.S.R.S. waited upon a prominent Head Office official regarding the whole matter. The result of the deputation or the answers they received were not ascortainable, but it is said that tho employment of these secret agents was neither denied nor admitted. In conclusion, tho following additional quotation is from the "Railway Review": —"Tho officials who are paid a high salary to devise efficient means of managing our railways ought to do something better than start an espionago system, such as caused the Sydney tram .strike, and was a big factor in the discontent which led to the Auckland tramway trouble. . . . But it is much easier in this country fo overlook the railway employee , , widdlo him with n f.r.'lty .system, nml then declare that he is incomDetent."