King Country Chronicle Wednesday, May 25, 1910 RAILWAY REFORM.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 262, 25 May 1910, Page 2

King Country Chronicle Wednesday, May 25, 1910 RAILWAY REFORM.

Mr Millar recently returned from his tour of inspection in Australia, and sums up the result by saying that New Zealand has little to learn from the railway management of her great Continental neighbour. There is a certain complacency about this view, that dooms us to sterility in railway progress. Mr Hall-Jones, a one-time Minister of Railways, and now our High Commissioner in London, used to express somewhat similar sentiments when comparing New Zealand with British railways. Perhaps there is some truth in these opinions so far as they refer to freight charges and quickness of transit of heavy goods traffic. We know, for instance, that goods trains from Scotland to London take from thirty to forty hours to cover the 400 miles. And complaints are ever-being received from traders as to the heavy freight charges and the differential preferential rates charged. It is when comparisons are made in the passenger rates that New Zealand suffers. It is true second and third-class travellers in New Zealand and England respectively, are charged one penny a mile, but there the comparison begins and ends. There is absolutely no likeness between our slow, ill-found passenger cars and the quick, smart, service of passenger trains at Home. It may be true that the Wellington-Auckland "express" is quicker than the Melbourne-Sydney express. It is certainly not as quick as a hundred trains which could be mentioned regularly running in the Old, Country. The main advantage dwellers at Home have over us, however, is in the very frequent excursion" and "week-end" fares conceded. All the year round it is possible to book to health resorts at low return fares. In Scotland from anywhere to anywhere else is a single fare for the double journey from Fridays to Mondays. We want some such concessions, too. We are told that the department cannot put a passenger carriage on the morning goods train to the King Country. Why? Presumably because the traffic is not there, ready made. Let Mr Millar consider this point. The shrewd, long-headed managers of the British railways find it pays to give concessions,__ They get a largely increased ti-Sffic in return. That is what we should have here. To build up a 3| pircent. yield on the. capital

invested in our railways it is not sufficient to merely restrict facilities and cut down services. Development is needed, expansion must come, increased and better accommodation requires to be given. Otherwise, there is a strangled, dissatisfied public, ever calling for improvements, asking for bread and not even being served regularly with road-metal.