DOG-IN-THE-MANGER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1816, 20 April 1918, Page 3

DOG-IN-THE-MANGER.

(Palmerston Times.) The latest example of the dog-in-the-manger policy followed by the Railway Department is that whereby the charges for handling goods at the ports controlled by the Railway Department have been increased by 100 per cent, and upwards. The Foxton Harbour Board, at is last meeting, uttered a protest to the Department against this method of penalising all classes of the local community, and in this the Board should have the support not only of all the settlers, workers and other?; to whom the increased charges, if they don’t come directly, are at least passed on. The Railway Department for many years now has evidently been rim bysoraeone with the soul of a pettifogging shopkeeper. Ministers may come and Ministers may go, General Managers may even be changed, but the hand remains the hand of Esau, though the voice may be the voice of Jacob. "When the war caused an increase to be made in railway freights, the Department also increased the wharfage charges, at the ports controlled by it, in a like proportion. To this no exception could be taken —it was treating wharves and railways alike, and putting them on the same footing. To impose a new handling charge, however, of Is Gd per ton, as was done last December, then to further increase this amount to 2s fid, plus 10 per cent, in March, meant the imposition of a new and heavy burden, quite out of all proportion to anything that could be justified by war conditions. It could only be explained by the existence of a desire on the part of the Department to divert freight from thq coastal boats to the railways, just as (he shopkeeper trios to divert business to his store from the man over the way. Such a conception of, Railway Department policy might justify the means adopted, but it is only a pettifogging conception after all, and one which should find no place in the executive of a great State-owned service of such national importance as the railways. On the first of this month, however, the Department seems to have crowned all its previous predatory performances by imposing an extra charge of 2s per ton on al\ goods coming over the Foxton wharf (making a total of Gs Gd per ton). So far as can be ascertained, this charge is not for alleged service rendered, it is not wharfage, it is not handling, it is just a plain demand to stand and deliver, emphasised, with the pistol at the heads of the merchants who still have the temerity to use the coastal freighters instead of the railways. It can ‘'only have one object in view—vi/,., to kill the trade at the port in order to increase the railway returns, and is a matter which calls for public action. It is the evidence of the existence of a policy which tries to make up for the Department’s own lack of initiative by destroying it wherever displayed by others. There is, however, the usual silver lining even to this black cloud caused by departmental astigmatism, there is now a probability (hat the wharf at Eoxton will soon be x'emoved from the blighting influence of departmental control and placed under the control of the Harbour Board, which is elected by the people most concerned. A Royal Com-mission-two years ago inquired fully into the whole of the then exists, ing grievances that this district had against the Railway Department, and the findings of that Commission are virtually a pronouncement against the policy which, combined with the apathy of the people, has kept back the development of a large and fertile district. [At Patea a .refund will be made by the Department for overcharges made.—Ed.H.]