HUGE WAGES BILL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 683, 7 June 1929, Page 9

HUGE WAGES BILL

NEARLY £5,000,000 FOR RAILWAY GENERAL MANAGER’S REVIEW The wages bill for railway employees amounts to nearly £5,000,000 a year. This information is given by the general manager, Mr. H. H. Sterling, in a recent issue of the railway magazine. He adds that last year the sum of £6,250,000 was spent on wages and on the purchase of commodities in New Zealand. The wages account of £4,554,136 and the amount spent on New Zealand produce and manufactures was £1,345.360. These figures go to prove that every section of the community in the Dominion is interested in the national transport business, continues Mr. Sterling, who goes on to state his case to the primary producers. We desire to bring home to the farmers the fact that while the railway is helping, and continues to do what it can to help, the farming community to an advantageous use of the railway system of the country, there is a definite responsibility on the part of the farming community to give the railway such support as will make it a thriving institution and so put it in a position to cater more and more adequately for the needs of the people. There is, therefore, a definite responsibility on them to make the railways a success in fact, and so justify the statement of those who advocated their construction that they were a justifiable proposition. The railways are only worth the use that is made of them, and unless people use them our lines cannot possibly be a success from any point of view, financial or otherwise. Our outlook is not bounded by the financial return alone, although of course it is our object to do the best possible from this point of view—but we desire also to give a service to the public that will be satisfactory to them. It is largely on this second principle that the farmers’ excursions are based.

With almost £5,000,000 spent annually in the wages of railway employees, it is clear that those engaged in secondary industries are definitely gainers by the assured spending power of railway employees. It is to their direct interest, in view of the fact that the railways are an essential industry, to give adequate support to the railways in the way of placing their freight business with the national concern in preference to passing it over, as some of them do at times, to uneconomically operating, and unessential competitors. PROFITS FOR MONTH INCREASE IN SOUTH ISLAND (Special to THE SUN) WELLINGTON. Thursday. The first four weeks’ working of the Railway Department's new year has shown a profit of £107,366. The corresponding period last year showed a working profit of £130.221, but this included the Easter period. This year all passenger hookings at excursion rates were made in the last week of March. The gross earnings were £618,417, a decrease of £24,486, and the expenses were £511,051. a decline of only £1,530 This was probably due to the cost of running extra transport for return traffic on tickets purchased the previous month. The North Island’s profit of £45,253 was £26.000 less than last year, but the South Island's working profit had increased by £7,214 to £41,986. Net miscellaneous revenue declined to £20,126, a drop of £4,000.