RAILWAY MATTERS.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2242, 9 June 1881, Page 3

RAILWAY MATTERS.

If *** I To the Editor of the Globe. g IR/ X was glad, a few days since, to I observe that yon, in a leader, pointed out | some of the incongruities of the railway management in New Zealand. With regard to the chaotic manner of tumbling luggage about, this colony is following in the footsteps of the mother country. Travellers returning to England from America and the Continent of Europe have, for years past, been pointing out the simplicity and safety of the system adopted in the management of passengers’ luggage in those countries, but all to no purpose a deaf ear is turned to all complaints. The managers of railways in New Zealand are well aware of their shortcomings—or ought to be—and yet will persist in annoying the public. When a traveller in America delivers his luggage »t a station he is presented with a metal ticket, with a number stamped on it, A similar ticket is placed on each package of his luggage. When he arrives at his destination and presents his ticket he will most probably find all his packages sorted and waiting for him. In London it is almost a daily occurrence for members of the swell mob, who take advantage of the utter confusion, to walk off with passengers’ luggage with no one to say them nay.

When upon this subject’, allow me to point out another matter —that Is, the fallacy of a uniform charge. Now, sir, without going to London, where, from the enormous traffic, yau can be carried several miles by steamboats for a penny or twopence, we will just refer to our own tramway. The Tramway Company will convey you to Papanul for threepence (less than a penny a mile.) By the railway to Lyttelton yon have to pay _ la 2d for six miles and a quarter, or 2Jd a mile What can be more unreasonable than to charge the same in a thickly populated centre as in the howling wilderness? The twopence clapped on (and bother of providing change) has kept thousands away from Port. The policy should be to accommodate the public and to encourage traffic. Yours, &c., GROWLER.