PUBLISHED MONDAYS, WEDNESDAYS AND FRIDAYS. MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 1916 "TIME, GENTLEMEN, TIME"

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 139, 31 January 1916, Page 2

PUBLISHED MONDAYS, WEDNESDAYS AND FRIDAYS.

MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 1916 "TIME, GENTLEMEN, TIME"

" We nothing extenuate, nor set dovm auuht in malice."

The quotation as above is a haunting retrain, known throughout the Dominion in a certain line of business, and is never very popular although inexorably enforced. Consequently when attached as it has been, in effect, to-day to the visit to the Lower Waikato of Mr E. H. Hiley, the general manager of New Zealand Railways, it is unnecessary to say that it has been attended with no little public resentment. A visit of a bare half hour to Pukekohe, the centre of the Prime Minister's electorate, may be Mr Hiley's recognition of the sufficiency of the importance of the district but it will hardly conduce to confidence being reposed in Mr Hiley in railway management. Mr Hiley was imported from England by the Government for the purpose of reorganising the railway system after making himself thoroughly acquainted with Dominion and local conditions. He possibly has gained knowledge of affairs as they e.x'st in the large centres but the country districts, the admitted feeders of the towns, also have their undoubted claims for consideration. In visits made to l'ukekohe even by Cabinet Ministers much more consideration as regards allowance of time has been shown and few, if any, have departed without taking steps to obtain some idea by means of pere >nal observation of the character of the district by which aloue (he merits or dements of the causes at issue can be properly and fairly determined. Yet Mr Hiley issues his programme that he will arrive at Pukekohe at 10.50 a.m. to-day and leave again at 11.20 a.m., and this despite the fact that the Prime Minister, in his capacity as member fur the electorate, recently gave the promise that as lie was busily engaged in national affairs Mr Hiley would make an appointment so that the various railway matters for which official heed was desired should be imparted to him for solution and decision. Mr Hiley may or may not be convinced that the requests of the deputation that waited on him should be acceded to. That is not the point. What we contend is that if a policy of a hurried and lleeting visit everywhere is to bo maintained it simply means that Mr Hiley adopts red tape methods and without accepting the principio of "seeing is believing " either decides without full knowledge of conditions | as they exist or is guided by the advice of those at district headquarters. Surely the railway service is not so short of highly paid senior assistants and officials that Mr Hiley's absonce from Wellington necessitates him having but a bare lleeting glance of a portion of a dis* trict that provides a by no means sin.ill revenue to the upkeep of the system that ho controls. As at Pukekohe, (he method of hustle was similarly adopted at Papakura, Huncimau and Drury.