OUR RAILWAYS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1704, 21 March 1906, Page 2

OUR RAILWAYS.

THEIR ADMINISTRATIONS.

INTERVIEW WITH HON. MR PITT

(P*r Pres* Association.) Wellington, last nigb

Last month a conference, hi Id at Pal merston North, was attended by delegates from Hawke’s Bay, Wairarapa, a;d Wanganui, to consider certain aßpests of railway administration. At this conference resolutions were passed with refer* ence to improvements in regard to tbe Napier-Palmerston North servioe, the Wairarapa service,,the Manawatu line, and other things, The deputation was set up to wait on the Acting-Manager for Railways. To-day the deputation was in Wellington and placod these matters before Mr Pitt.

The Minisler, in reply, said it had to be borne in mind that the railway system had to be oonduoted on business principles. Already, concessions amounting to over a million bad boon made, and the railway rates were now oheaper than in any other colony, and oLesper than in England. Tho deputation had presented mattois in a light which previously had not occurred to h ! m. He did not propose to give definite answers at- that moment, as he would like to look carefully over tbe resolutions of the conference. With referenoo to plaoing a dining car on the Napier-Woodville eootioD, ho thought the deputation bad forgotten that there were refreshment rooms along the line, and besides it would mean another engine. In regard to railway employees involved in departmental inquiries being represented at the enquiry by one of their own society, he was recently waited upon by a deputation from the Amalgamated Sooiety of Railway Servants, and that was one of the matters submitted. At all these inquiries the.evidence of witnesses was taken down in writing, and the person accused bad the right to .cross-examine and to oall any witnessed Then there was the right of appeal. He would confer with tbo general manager, and send a reply in writing to the matters plaoed before him,