ABOUT STATE RAILWAYS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 140, 8 March 1919, Page 7

ABOUT STATE RAILWAYS

AN AMERICAN DISAPPROVES. Experience of Government management of railways has caused Mr. Earlo C. Miller, of tho Chautauqua party, to revise some of the ideas that he brought with him from the United States. Mr. Miller stated: yesterday that ho had como to Australasia, from a country where all tho railways arc privately owned, with a prejudice in favour of State ownership. Ho bad believed that tho railways, as the chief channels of communication and transport in every country, ought to be owned by the people. But he had changed his mind after (.ravelling through Australia and New, Zealand, for the simple reason that he. had become convinced the private companies got better results than the State Railway Departments appeared able to get. Ho thought that comparison of the American railways and the Australasian railways was bonnd to produce a verdict in favour of t.he American private'y-owned lines. One of the points mentioned by Mr. Miller wn„s the tendency of the railway systems of Australia, And New Zealand to heroine the feeders-of particular centre*. This was particularly marked in Australia, where each of the State* had a bic ennival city that dwarfed all the o!!jer State towns and was tho centre of business activity. The railway lines, under State management, seemed to liavo been laid out with the. object of developing and feeding these capital eitic« without much regard to the. in teres! s of Die country population. Tho system in America was quite different. The railway companies set themselves to develop the oountry nnd increase its productivity. They worn not interested in swelling the importance of particular cities, ami tho capital of an American Stato was not necessarily tho commercial or industrial centre. The railways did not all load to tho capital; and the interests of the country were not mndo subservient (o the interests of the city.