Manawatu Standard (published daily.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. FRIDAY, JULY 11, 1884. RAILWAYS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 192, 11 July 1884, Page 2

Manawatu Standard (published daily.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. FRIDAY, JULY 11, 1884. RAILWAYS.

In certain neighboring colonies, we believe, the system of placing the management of all the Government railways m the hands of what is termed a non-political Board, has been found to work with the most signal success. A non-political Hoard simply consists of men who have no interests to serve by " softsoaping 11 a Government, and no consequences to fear from acting m an unbiased manner, according to their convictions, as to what appears

to be the right and proper course to take. It seems about time that such a system were introduced into New Zealand, both for the sake of the country and with a view to reassuring the British capitalists that any money that may be borrowed and spent ?n the future, will be laid out judiciously and m accordance with the unprejudiced views of the most experienced engineers that the Government can procure. Mr Fraser m his published speeches disapproves of our railways being m any other hands than those of the Government, and he considers the efficient or defective management of the railways the all-important good point or failing, when their administration is under criticism. We do not believe that the majority of the electors share this view with Mr Fraser. Moreover, the fallacy of it may be proved by his own words. He has expressed a leaning towards the Ministry which has just fallen, by which we presume Mr Fraser deems their measures wise and beneficial to the country. Bat one chief cause of the downfall of the Atkinson Ministry was the raising of the railway tariffs m Canterbury. No one doubts that the late Premier took that step after due deliberation, and because he considered that the freight on wheat should be raised m fairness to other parts of the colony, so that the railway revenue should pay the work ing expenses. And no one doubts for a moment that the wary Major did not foresee that a gteat hubbub would result from such action. The freights were, however, raised. A conscientious Treasurer — for we must give him due credit for it, executed what he deemed to be his duty ; and the result is that he is promptly turned out of office. Does this not suggest the idea that the management of our railways, whether m constructing new lines, or m working existing ones, should be conducted by independent men ? There was every inducement for Major Atkinson torefrainfrom raising the railway tariff had he been afraid of the consequences. He evidently was not, and the result is that through his railway mismanagement the colony lost a leader that Mr Fraser would fain follow, and yet Mr Fraser considers that the Government that cannot manage its railways should be replaced by one that could. We do not see where the consistency of such a policy lies. This only has reference to the working of railways that at present exist. With regard to the lenders of money losing faith m us, we again disagree with Mr Fraser. He introduces as a simile, the case of a man mortgaging his land for purposes of improvement, and maintains that if the mortgagee were to see the farmer employing a man to supervise the expenditure of that money, he would lose faith m the farmer and would never assist him any more. Now this is entirely a false deduction. No mortgagee, m our opinion, would object to the farmer employing an experienced manager to see that the borrowed capital was only spent on really substantial improvements. In fact, if the farmer were not a very practical man himself, the mortgagee would greet the proposal with pleasure. The British capitalists have no doubt heard how much of the money that has been borrowed from them has been mis-spent through the bad management of incapable and extravagant Governments. They perhaps expected we should construct more miles of railways, to increase their security ,than we nave ; and worst of all, they know it to be a fact that some of tiie lines that we have constructed will never pay interest on their cost, and were only carried out to aid some political job, or work some some political swindle. It would strike most people who give the subject the consideration it deserves that no better measure could be adopted for the colony, either to secure fair play for the inhabitants, or to ensure the wisest and most reproductive expenditure of the public money, or to raise our credit m the estimation of the British capitalist, than the plan of forming a non-political Board for the management of our railways.