THE H.B. TRIBUNE SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1927 RAILWAY POLICY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 3 December 1927, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1927 RAILWAY POLICY

rpHE debate in the House of Representatives on the second reading of the Finance Bill, reported partly yesterday and partly to-day, has brought up questions of grave concern to the people, and particularly to the taxpayers, of the Dominion. These were raised in connection with the authority sought by the Government for the floating of further loans aggregating some seven million sterling. Of this amount it is in contemplation that four million would be allocated to public works, including “construction of railways and additions to open lines, additional rollingstock for open lines, and such other works and purposes in connection therewith as may be authorised.” Another two million is appropriated for expenditure under the provisions of the Railways Improvement Act of 1914. In connection with these proposed allocations the discussion turned mainly on the subject of the continuation of the policy of railway construction that had been laid down before there was any full realisation of the serious eifect ol competition from motor vehicles. It may, we fancy, be accepted that there is no one in the Dominion who is now better aware of what this means than the Minister of Railways himself, the Hon. J. G. Coates. There is no need, therefore, to din it further into his ears. His is the rather unhappy job of trying to devise means whereby, in the face of this daily increasing competition, the railways, in which some 60 million of the people’s money is irrevocably sunk, can be made to pay their way. That, too, is the problem in whose solution he should have the sympathy and assistance of every thoughtful man and woman with the country’s interests at heart. The difficulty is none of his making, for, in pursuance of the original policy of exclusively State-owned railways, it has been in the making for the last sixty years with every mile of new line laid down. To hear the way some folk talk and write, it might easily be thought that Mr. Coates was responsible for the building of the whole lot and that, when building them, he ought to have foreseen

the coming of the motor-vehicle in its tens and hundreds of thousands. The cursed spite, so far as Mr. Coates is concerned, is that he has been born t° set right a time that is out of joint from causes that were not to be foreseen by him or by those who went before him in office. In his Railway Statement, presented early in the session now drawing to its close, he set out quite fully the problem he had to solve, showing clearly that he fully appreciated all the difficulties that stood in the way of its solution. But the probabilities are that not nearly one in a hundred of his would-be critics troubled to read what he had to say on the subject, even though it was duly reported in the daily newspaper. At the same time, there can be no doubt but that in the formulation and execution of a new railway policy the greatest caution will be required. This, too, Mr. Coates has recognised and with it in view he is setting up a com mission to investigate the whole subject of our internal transport in the hope of ascertaining facts that will enable the devising of some means whereby the various available services may be co-ordinated in such a manner as to preserve and increase the usefulness of a system in which so much public money is invested. No one has probably given more thought than he to the possibility of reducing expenditure on railway construction until the result of these investigations is known and considered. But anything like a cessation of construction activities —even did contract commitments permit — would also involve the throwing of thousands of men out of employment, while the diversion of them onto road construction before a new scheme of cooperation between road and railway is worked out might only complicate an already sufficiently tangled problem. What has to be borne in mind is that the Minister is for the time being the trustee of sixty millions of the people's money, and that his thankless task is to see how he can make the best of it for an entirely ungrateful and, in the main, unhelpful, even embarrassing, body of bene ficiaries.

Having said all this in the Minister s defence, it is only right to add that we believe he will consult both the wishes of the great majority and the welfare ot the country by abstaining as far as is possible in any new scheme from entering upon an extension of the Government’s business undertakings. It is, as the Minister of Finance said in yesterday’s debate, by the will of the people that the Government has got a monopoly of the railway service of this country, and doubtless there would be a roar of protest from the multitude were serious proposal made to sell it into other hands. But those who have eyes , must see into what a complexity of kindred undertakings its ownership is already leading, for the enjoyment of one monopoly tends to a desire for the acquisition of another, and none can see the end if a policy of expanding them under bureaucratic control is permitted to establish itself. Now that the days of political patronage through the expenditure of public money are pretty well past, one would imagine that Ministers would be only too glad to reduce rather than to increase their involvements in business enterprises, the risks of which are must better left to private capital. It is easy to be seen, with our railways as an example, that they are little likely to bring them either credit or thanks, even when successfully conducted, and that they are very apt to bring them the maximum of discredit and condemnation when they prove or become losing propositions.