RAILWAY MATTERS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1419, 20 April 1912, Page 14

RAILWAY MATTERS.

Sir,—Ther« can bo no doubt in the mind of anyone who reads the sub-leader in your edition of April 16 that you have put your finger on a spot in the rnilwny mnnngement which calls for immediate attention. To give tho matter a moment's thought must convince ono that in a huge undertaking Mich as the New Zealand railways an expert in the business is required at the lead. From' personal experience, they are not run on business lines, but under regulations - which are arbitrary and unjust 1 to the last degree. Some little time ago a regulation was gazetted to tho effect that in tho event of any misstatement in any consignment note, whether such mistako was wilful or otherwise, doublo rates would be charged on the whole consignment. When the injustice of this was pointed out to the late Minister by a deputation in Duuedin, ho is reported to have said in effect that this regulation was gazetted to penaliso the sawniillers only, who were in the habit of understating _ consignments. I submit, sir, that this is a gross libel on the sawmillers as a body from ono end of the colony to the other. There may bo some who would do this, but would not this apply to all classes of consignors? It has been represented to the Department that the bulk of the under-consign-ments in connection with timber are occasioned by the calculations involved in making out tho consignment notes, c.r else.to tho fact that it is an impossibility t-> tally a consignment of timber within 30, 40, or even ISO feet, unless by devoting 'air amount of time and labour which is impossible at a country sawmill, where one man may load and tally, waybill and consign six to eight thousand feet per day. Compare this with the time and labour employed by the Department to unload, check,' and load 2700 feet—four men each 51 hours and a man to do the tallying. With regard to the consignment notes, will anyone .-'enture to say that the calculations involved can be done year in and year out without an error? Yet this is what-the Department requires, and if a sawmiller's clerk makes a mistake of a few feet, which results in an understatement, and which, mind you, is apparent on the face of the consignment note; the employer is to be penalised by having to pay doublo rates on the whole consignment. That is the Department's idea of business methods. _ , ; their reasons for this imposition is: "If we do not penalise you for clerical errors, no care will bo taken with the extensions." Another is: "We have to put on clerks to check the notes; tho sawmiller must'pay for'it." The Department is obsessed with the idea that every sawmiller is a rogue, who is faying to cheat it,' and it will listen to no reason. I say most emphatically, penalise the man who cheats the Department, but give tho honest customer a fair and equate deal. Tho Department cannot mention any class of goods the profit from the haulage of which anywhere approaches that derived from - timber. Weight for weight, which is the 'only thing that counts in haulage, timber pays a higher rate than any other product of the land, and in addition the Department never touches it, unless they charge for the handling of it. The sawmillers, as well as being users of the railway, are also taxpayers, and fiart owners of the railways, and are surey entitled to bo treated individually as honest until proved tho contrary.—l am, SAWMILLER. Taihapc, April 17, 1912.