INCREASED RAILWAY RETURNS.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 56, 22 March 1937, Page 4

INCREASED RAILWAY RETURNS.

Our Minister of Railways is to-day; also reported as speaking with. Bomething like pride of the increased earnings of the service which is under his ministerial control. It is certainly good news to learn that the very large additions to working costs find some, though by no xneans full, compensation in augmented returns. It is at least some sort of comfort to the taxpayesr who have to make up the still heavy losses that are incurred on the vast capital investment in. our railway system, which are certainly not likely to be reduced by some of the construction work now put in hand. Mr. Sullivan is, however, scarcely entitled to raise the implied suggestion that the improvement in takings is due to the change of Government. The railways are to-day being run on very much the same Ilnes, and largely by the same responsible officerSj as were established by the Eailways Board to which the Government so abruptly gave its "running shoes," so that it might itself take unfettered control. It is indeed mainly to the efficient organisation gradually instituted 'by the Board, under most difficult conditions, that such success as is . now attending the service is due, and it would be a graceful thing on Mr. Sullivan's part if he would acknowledge it. The Board had during the greater part of its term of office to contend with a general depression that badly affected alll industries and services. Yet it managed to do a very great deal in the way of popularising the railways and, what Mr. Sullivan has not yet done, in inc'reasing the net surplus over working expenses available towards paying interest on capital expenditure. On the other hand, ministerial control has been resumed on a rising tide of prosperity, with revived industrial and commercial aetivity, the reflectinn chiefly of what has happened in the Old Country. Beyond that, too, not a little, but a very great deal, of the extra patronage now extended to the railways and their auxiliaries is due to the fact that ths Government has forced competing, and in not a few cases cheaper and more convenient, services off the roads or into its own transport system. But these are, of course, little considerations which the Minister can scarcely be expected to emphasise.