RAILWAY CONTROL.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1390, 16 March 1912, Page 4

RAILWAY CONTROL.

The dispute between the M'Gowen Cabinet in New South Wales and the Chief .Railway Commissioner in regard to the supply of locomotives has ended in a victory for the ComThe Government has decided—"with reluctance," the cablegram says —to order twenty locomotives in England, as requested by the Commissioner. Presumably, even Mr. M'Gowen and his colleagues, anxious as they were to have all railway engines built in the State, could not. resist the logic of the remonstrance in which the Commissioner pointed out that, as the Everleigh workshops were able to construct only twenty-five locomotives in a year, it was necessary to import largely. The issue appears to have been so simple, and the Chief Commissioner so clearly in the right, that it must be difficult for any unbiased observer to resist the_ conclusion that the action of the Ministers was dictated less by a real concern for the welfare of the State than by a desire to promote their own political fortunes regardless of the effect upon sound railway management. Another instance of the same disposition is the delay in the duplication of the main trunk lines. This work was strongly urged by the present Chief Commissioner, Mr. Johnson, immediately after his appointment. A commencement was made, but the Government appears to be so spreading the available labour over other works that this most important and urgent undertaking is making but slow progress. Hence some of the criticisms, to which the railway management is rather unfairly subjected on the score of inadequate provision for the traffic. The M'Gowen Cabinet obviously does not like management by Commission, and the reason can be no other than that indicated by the Sydney Telegraph—a,n "itch for more power over the system," an antagonism to "the ideal of a service free from any kind of political wire-pulling." The same paper has published a valuable letter from Sib William M'Millan, who was Treasurer and Minister for Railways . under Sir Henky Pahkes soon after that statesman had introduced the Commission system. By > way of encouraging the public to give their support to the principles of sound management against the attacks of the Cabinet and its heelers, Sir William M'Mili,an_ recalls the similar, but fiercer, trials under which the first Chief Commissionerj Mr. Eddy, at the cost of the greatest personal sacrifice, successfully fulfilled the trust reposed in him. The story, as told by Sir William M'Millan, must bo reproduced here, if. only for its record of heroic ddvotion to duty; The previous Pnrkes Government lintl n two-thirds majority, but the Government of which I was a member had only a majority, of four. . The elements, therefore, which had always fouqht jobbery and favouritism had materially weakened. When, however, it was found that the firm hand of Mr. Eddy wns strong enough to enforce the. Act in its integrity, all the other elements began howling against the Act and the administrator. Mr. Eddy wns a man of great courage, but also of great sensitiveness, the latter an unknown quantity in present-day Executives. The bitter, vicious, and unscrupulous opposition which lio had to face during the first few years of his term of office, undoubtedly laid the seeds of tho disease to which ho ultimately succumbed. However, in these years the 'neck of the opposition was broken, and the only sign of its existence when I retired from office was the annual monumental speech of Mr. Schey in the small hours of the morning. During that time not ono einglo item of the Railway Estimates was touched, as we knew it was not for sake of economy tho were proposed, but simply in order to humiliate Mr. Eddy anil if possible to force his resignation. The situation of that period is now to a great extent being reproduced, or, as Sir William M'MillUn puts it, "the old game of bull-baiting has recommenced, and Mr. Johnson is the new victim," But there is this difference: Mr. Eddy was discharging his duty, beside Ministers who recognised that it would have been as improper to tamper with him as with a Judge of the Supreme Court, whereas the present Government of New South Wales, with its' lofty scorn of every principle that conflicts with the policy of "spoils to the victors," has been leading the attack on Mr. Johnson. Existing only by virtue of a fictitious majority, the M'Gowen Cabinet shows itself very ill-disposed towards its constitutional obligation to leavo ' the management of the State's greatest business undertaking free from Executive interference. We are confident that the people of New South Wales do not share their Government's antipathy to sound principles of railway management. The Commissioner system has been so completely vindicated by ita results in all the Australian States that wo cannot believe that any of them will try to repeat the bad old days when the railway balance-sheets were full of the consequences of a system under which the interests of a group, of politicians were inevitably placed before the interests of the people. Tho Commissioners sometimes make mistakes, of courße, but their keenest critics uphold the principles of nonpolitical controL A very few years ago the Tasmanian .State railway system was the only ono in Australia that was still under political control, and the only one that was run at a terrible loss. Tasmania read the object lesson of her sistor States, with tho result that New Zealand is today the only State in the whole of Australasia where tho railways have not yet been freed from political control.