The Oamaru Mail WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1880.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1314, 23 June 1880, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1880.

The report of the Civil Service Commission, but more especially that portion of it relating to the Railway Department i 3, as might very naturally have been anticipated, the engrossing topic of the day, and we therefore need make no apology for again, referring to the subject. It is, we think, a matter for regret that the Commissioners did not give a greater amount of attention to pointing out methods by means of which the evils they relate, at times with a circumstantiality that would do credit to a penny-a-liner, might in the future be overcome. It is true that they have endeavored to prescribe remedies, but in many cases they are mere quackeries. The force of their language in pointing out evils is only excelled by the weakness of their recommendations. Herein lies the great fault to be found with the report, and it must be admitted that the fault is a serious one. The limited time at the disposal of the Commissioners may be pleaded as some excuse for this, but it can scarcely be accepted as a complete answer to the charge. The report bears upon the face of it the fact of having been hurriedly written, for like all hurriedly-prepared works of the kind it shows a lack of careful thought and preparation. Had the Commissioners given the matter greater consideration their report would not have contained such a vast amount of sensationalism ; while pointing out abuses, it would have shown clearly how these abuses might in the future be avoided ; and as a natural result the remarks and recommendations would have been entitled to a far greater amount of respect than can now be given to them. It needed not the Commissioners startling revelations to convince the public that our railways were grossly mismanaged; this has been patent to all who have eyes to see and have seen, or ears to hear and have heard. The fact is, that from its inception to the present time the railway scheme has been entirely experimental. We have had experimental engineering in i railway construction and experimental management after the lines were con- | structed. Men who could lay no claim | to former experience have been employed as railway engineers, and have by a series of expensive experiments sought to obtain qualifications that they should have possessed before receiving appointments. Men inexperienced in the working of railways have, by what means we need not stop to consider, been appointed to responsible positions in connection with the management of the lines, with the very natural consequence that they have by a series of expensive experiments sought to ascertain what their duties really were. We can only regret that in the majority of cases they have not yet experimented in the right direction, and that they have not found a satisfactory solution of the difficult problem how to make the railways return a profit and serve the public. It was to solve this problem, amongst others, that the Civil Service Commission was appointed, but we cannot say that even they have more than half succeeded. They have merely told us why our lines return so little profit, but, with the exception of one or two suggestions, not backed up by even a show of reasoning, they have failed to show how we can make a profit out of our railway lines and still maintain their efficiency. The only suggestion worthy of note made in connection with the management of our railways is that in reference to the appointment of one permanent head of the whole railway staff of the Colony instead of having, as at present, a Commissioner for each island. This is a sensible suggestion, and we feel inclined to applaud the Commissioners for even this small evidence of capacity to do more than sniff out abuses and parade them before the public, but we are prevented from giving them praise for this small assistance towards arriving at a practicable solution of the difficulty by the utterly absurd remarks which follow the suggestion. "With childlike simplicity, the Commissioners, themselves laymen, say that " the General Manager for New Zealand Railways should be rather a man of business, with good organising capacity, than a mere engineer or even railway expert." This is sadly in contradiction with the preceding remarks of the Commissioners, and leads to the belief that, although they deprecate the employment of inexperienced men, some at least of their number believe they know how to manage railways, though strangely none of them are " mere engineers or even railway experts." With the assertion that one head for the whole of the lines in the Colony would be better than two we agree, but whoever that one bead may be, experience in the management of railways should be as much an indispensable condition of his fitness as organising capacity. But not only this. The solitary head of our railways must be a man acquainted with the require- j ments of the Colony, a man of Colonial in preference to Home experience, and a man capable of adapting the system of working the lines to the varying circumstances of different portions of the country, rather than of laying down any hard and fast ride, and maintaining it unbroken or unaltered no matter whether adapted or not to any particular locality. "Were it possible to obtain a sufficient number of thoroughly disinterested and competent men we should prefer seeing the managemenfc of the lines placed under the control of a Board, independefit of political influence, but this plan is rendered impossible by the fact that there are not to be found in the Colony, a sufficient number of men capable tif filling the positions, and under no circumstances should the control of our railways be placed in the hands of a Board of incompetents. The Commissioners refer very gingerly to another matter of some importance when tbey say that the suggested head of the railways " should !>,* expected to arrange the business of the Department as a private proprietor would do, with a view to make the line serve the public and pay its expenses rather than to enforce | 1 uniformity of charges or to consult the I narrow jealousies of local interests, j i

Here is the key to the "whole success of our railways. On many occasions we have pointed out that uniformity of tariff over all the lines "was utterly impracticable. Where there has _not been uniformity of cost of construction, where there cannot be uniformity of cost of haulage, where there is not uniformity of amount of traffic, there cannot be uniformity of charges. Every section of railway must, to ensure the success of the whole, stand the practical test of its commercial value to the State by being made to pay interest on the sum outlaid in its construction, and the cost of maintenance, repairs, and renewals. Unless a system of differential, charges is adopted the people in thickly populated districts must be compelled to contribute towards the cost incurred by railways in sparsely populated districts, where railways" should have been unknown for years to come. To secure the successful workingof the lines railways, the lines should be divided into sections, and each section should be placed under the control of a competent head, with strict instructions that he must, either by effecting savings or by increasing the tariffs on the lines under his control, make his section pay interest on the capital invested, and the cost of management and maintenance. To these officers should, in addition to liberal salaries, be paid bonuses according to the profits made on these sections. By adopting this course an additional incentive to effort and economy would be given, while the voice of the people would place a sufficient check upon the imposition ot excessive tariffs. These administrators of railway sections should be held responsible only to the General Manager for the Colony, and the power of altering tariffs should be removed from the Government, who are always subject to pressure from the public, and who too frequently act in direct antagonism to the advise and wishes of the managers of the railways in order to please the public of different localities. Unless some such system as that we have endeavored to sketch out is adopted, we shall hope in vain to find our railway lines prove reproductive in the true sense of the word.