Our Railways

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 97, 17 March 1888, Page 2

Our Railways

♦ lir his report of inquiries respecting American Railways, Mr Maxwell says, under the heading of Goods Traffic — " American Kail ways have generally a great advantage over ours in getting large traffic in both directions. All our heavy traffic is in one direction. Gram, wool, timber, coals, cattle, sheep, and produce all travel towards the ports and large towns; and the back loading is small." Thit is perfectly true, but who is to blame? In the matter of the timber industry i in this district, we all know it was most effectually burked by the crass obstinacy of those in whose hands the management of the railways was placed. When any concession was asked by the sawniillownere, the very

fact of the asking always seemed a good and sufficient reason for its refusal, or if the authorities did concede a point it was generally so hampered with conditions and instructions as to render it practically inoperative. In these columns it was pointed out — time after time— that if the timber, trade was encouraged by light railway : freights for exports, the increase of back freights of goods under the three higher classes of charges for railway carriage, would more than compensate for any apparent loss. The. industrial population would have been more than doubled in this settlement alone by this time, had the freights on white pine been made at all reasonable when there was a splendid market open for that class of timber in the Australian colonies. That opportunity was allowed to pass, and it will never recur [again. We notice Mr Maxwell has imported a new phrase^ which, we , confess, is perfectly strange to üb, but appears to mean a great deal with him ; it is " personal discrimination." We suppose it .means a sheep-farmer getting his produce carried as wool, and a sawmiller his produce as tim- j ber, and so on. However, Mr Max- ' well seems very fond of the said phrase and apparently 'finds a comfort ; in it like the old lady who found much religious joy in the word Mesopotamia. What we have always objected to in the management of our railways is the utter want of sympathy shotra to the people, to whom the railways belong. Not the slightest attempt has ever been made to conciliate the public when they have, or imagined they had, a grievance or an injustice to complain of. The management has been too autocratic, and no free people will put up with that for long.