THE RAILWAYS AND COAL

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 246, 11 July 1919, Page 6

THE RAILWAYS AND COAL

An answer to unfair criticism that has been levelled in some quarters at the Minister of Railways and his Department was given in the statement by the.General Manager of Railways, published yesterday.. Mi:. M'Villy explained in full detail the circumstances in which the coal stocks of the Department flame to be depleted to their present point, Though it opens no very hopeful prospect for the immediate future, the statement makes it clear enough that the Department cannot justly be held to account for the existing shortage. In particular it very completely disposes of the disingenuous attempt made last week by.the local Wardist newspaper to revive party strife and fasten blame for the reduction of railway services upon tho present Minister and his officials. In raising this charge the journal in question laid much emphasis upon the fact that when the last Libeval Ministry left office tho Railways Department had a reserve stock of 80,000 tons of coal, and in the contrast between this affluence and the present, dearth it found a measure of the ineptitude with which the present Minister and bis "imported expert" administered the railways. It is, of course, self-evi-dent that the maintenance of such a reserve of coal .as the Railways Department possessed in 1913 was utterly impossible in such conditions as speedily arose in the war years, and have yet to be improved upon. With .tho whole country living hand to mouth on seriously inadequate coal supplies, it would have been a policy or insanity to allow the Railways Department to keep a large stock of this essential commodity lying idle. Even had it enjoyed unfettered discretion in the matter the Department could not with any show of reason have pursued such a policy. In actual . fact, however, since 1915 the Railways Department, like other consumers, of coal, has been rationed by tho'Ooal Trade Board, which happens to bo under the presidency of a Liberal Minister. The whole trouble in the case of the railways,' as in that of otfter enterprises which consume largo quantities of coal, is the inadequacy of the supply. So far as the Department is concerned, the shortage has, of course, been heavily intensified by tho complete cutting oil of the supplies of Newcastle coal upon which it has always been largely dependent. In view of.the perfectly familiar fact that since 1915 the Railways Department has had little if any power in determining the volume of its coal supplies, tho attempt, referred to to make a little party capital out of its present difficulties was as clumsy as it was paltry.