GET BACK TO THE RAILWAYS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 19 January 1931, Page 2

GET BACK TO THE RAILWAYS

(By “Vox”)

The unprecedented action of Mr Ransom and a few of his colleagues in stopping construction work on two or three railways without warning or. the authority of his party, or Parliament, thereby depriving nearly 2000 men of work, many with dependants, is bringing forth a hurricane of righteous protests and indignation from many parts of the country. There is at least another aspect of our railways that needs bringing before the public, and strongly pressing on the_ attention of the people of this Dominion, and not least on the 80,000 farmers, in the form of a clai’ion call, to get back to the use of the railways, as the general method of transport, for until this is done the railways will continue to be a millstone on the neck of the State, and of the taxpayers, and a shuttlecock for politicians to play with. Mr Ransom in the course of his reply to the recent deputation from Gisborne, pointed out the need for educating the people of this country into the knowledge that the railways are their own property, and that they had to pay any losses made by the railways in the form of taxation. It is quite clear therefore that unless the people make general use of the railways as their regular form of transport, they will continue to cause a heavy burden of taxation to make up the huge and growing annual losses. THE MOTOR TRANSPORT ERA

We are of course living in a fools paradise of the motoring era to which the people have turned en masse, with the inevitable result that the country is paying dearly for this luxury, and more so than almost any other country for this form of transport, not only financially but also in the terrible toll of life and limb, by the daily toll of fatal accidents and injuries the growth and extent of which has become appalling. And yet in face of these factors, our Governments have for years been actively fostering the development of motoring, by building extravagantly expensive roads, mainly running parallel with and close to the railways, thereby inspiring and encouraging the creation and growth of the immense system ot motor competition with the railways, the main portion of which is allowed to be done on roads running alongside the railways, and done unchecked and uncontrolled, causing a double source ot taxation especially in country districts, in paying for costly roads, and additional taxation to make up the losses on the railways caused by the farmers and general public using the motor lorry, car and ’bus forms of transport, and leaving the railways to their fate of heavy losses. This has already resulted in the closing of several branch lines, the cutting down of train services on several other lines, and now. in stopping construction and completion of others, and by so doing have handed over a very large volume of freight and passenger traffic and revenue to motor transport. CALL A HALT The huge dimensions of motor transport competition may in part be gauged and realised from the statement of Mr Ransom that the motor transport annual cost had reached the immense sum of £32 000,000 last year, showing an increase of £4,000,000 over the previous year. If even a tenth of this, vast sum had been retained by the railways, or could be diverted back to railway transport, the present growing losses would be transformed into such a large pioht as to make the railways one of the best paying State services. A halt' in mopor transport must be called. , This transformation could easily be achieved by a Transport Act, to cut out the present wholly unnecessary motor competition along railway sides, and so controlling motor transport as to become feeders of the railways, but to do this successfully it would be necessary to remodel and modernise our railways rolling stock, and services to meet publie requirements. It has been a bye-word for the past twenty years that our railways have been run to meet the conveniences of the railway staff and not public convenience. Be that as it may, the railways to pay must provide daily and quick service, and this is easily possible by the tram or large bus type of self-propelled railway car for suburban and country frequent.service, and auxiliary self-propelled freight trucks, to meet country requirements for quid? lifting and transport. These are just as possible to secure and to run cheaply and quickly as are motor cars, and with these there need not have been any country lines cut out, nor any cutting down of train services were motor , competition cut out and a system of railway feeding put in its place. ON THE ROAD TO FINANCIAL RUIN The present uncontrolled motor luxury and uncontrolled motor competition is not only spelling ruin to our railways, but is also draining the financial resources of this Dominion to a fearful and prodigal degree, as shown by the fact that of the into scores of millions a year paid for roads for motors, in the form of cars, buses, and trucks, etc., it is conservatively estimated that £750,(JU0 out of each million paid annually for these and their maintenance, in oil, benzine and other accessories, goes out of this country —mainly to America —and that about half of each million thus sent to that country is lost to New Zealand for circulation and useful purposes, by reason of the fact that America does not buy New Zealand goods, and puts up high tariff walls to keep out our products. The extent ,to which the public generally and the farmers in particular are indulging in the unnecessary luxuries of private cars, is also draining their slender resources in payment and upkeep, to a tremendous extent and by preventing them from affording to engage labour, is thereby causing a considerable amount of unemployment. It is therefore time that this Donnn ion took a grip of the transport problem, and stopped the senseless competition between the roads and railways,, and by a system of control and co-ordination secure for the railways their rightful share of passengers and freight and so make them pay handsomely and prove a useful and essential service such as they were designed to be.