RAILWAY MATTERS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3659, 22 December 1920, Page 4

RAILWAY MATTERS.

j HOUSING- OF EMPLOYEES THE TRUCK SHORTAGE. (. MR R, W. SMITH'S VIEWS. r * .4- • Continuing his .speech on .railway matters in the recent session'* of Parliament, Mr E. W. Smith said:'-* I wish to refer to clause 6, which gives the Department power to pur. chase land for the (purpose of erecting homes for railway workers. Time after time I have stated in this House that the Railway Department ( should have made very much bettar provision for housing their employ. ee? There is no service in a betiex position to arrange homes for their employees They have complete knowledge of the labour required -it the different stations throughout thi Dominion and the sole right of ""deciding which of their officials shall perform it and fill positions at the; different centres, so that there could be no possibility of of the Depart-

ment having any of its houses unoccupied. I had hoped that when this bill came down it would contain a provision to grant some extra a& lowance or bonus, or whatever it might be termed, to those who work in isolated places There are many isolated stations along the different lines of New Zealand, that are very unattractive from the point of view of the railway employees, and, as is well known, there have been, many resignations because those who have been ordered to transfer to the class of centres I have mentioned, have refused to go. I understand that the men stationed at Cross Oreek receive an allowance of 1/ a day. over and above the ordinary pay, and I would strongly suggest that some such provision should be made more general, in order that the iso„ lated positions might be made more attractive., ThVre /'are man# places along the North Island Main Trunk line, particularly towards the centre of it, where it is difficult to get men to accept positions and if say, an extra shilling a day were given it would help the Department out of its present difficulties in this respect. Time after time, when*, men have been notified to transfer to one of these places, tliey have absolutely refused to go, and as a result the Department has had to give way and cancel the order to transfer. In many instances the employees, sooner than goto the places allotted to them, have resigned, and in this way the service • has Jost many good loyal and practical men, and the Department can. ill afford to lose trained men.

I should. iik"e to ask the Minister if the principle of adding the bonus to salary Vlnches to be provided- for in this bill as applying to the second division, is to app]y also to the first division, and whether the bonus becomes part of salary and entitles members of the first division to ticipate in the superannation on thebasis of the whole of the salary they receive, j I wish again to bring under thej notice of the Minister the disgrace--1 ful shortage of rolling stock that has existed in New Zealand for many many years. This is another matter that has been constantly been ■ de_ ferred> postponed. It has been allowed to drift, drift, drift. All that we have been told when we complained was that enquiries were being made in America and elsewsere, or that -attempts had been made to secure rolling stock, but without success. I was glad to hear from the Minister of Railways to.night that a definite number of trucks have been ordered, and I sin. cerely hope he will keep this matter actively before him, so that at. least some of the locomotives and trucks will be made available in the near future. Industries of all kinds have been unfairly handicapped for want of them, and the farming community also has been very badly treated. During past wool seasons it has been Quite a usual thing to see half, a- | dozen waggons loaded with wool, covered with tarpaulins, standing at stations on the Main Trunk line awaiting trucks, the goods sheds were too full to allow the waggoners to unload and the result has been that waggoners and their teams have had to stand, idle. Then farmers' demands for sheep trucks, or trucks fo>r farm produce, Have not been met. It of ten' happens that orders arc ac_ cepted by the Department and farmers arc led to believe that trucks will be available at a given time. They send their stock, perhaps a ( three or five days' drive only to find that no trucks have arived and that nothing definite is known by the officer in charge as to when they will be available. In such casos. an-' iVcy

are numerous, the owner must engage drovers to tail the stock along the roads and the result in many . cases is that the .stock thrt "<>-- '"«*"• when they left the arm have to be ■ returned to *hf -'.rni as sttr- • • ' a whole season is lost That hi r. U: r-i ■

pot only to the owners of the stock, but to the whole Dominion. tl is high time this matter was handled - in a business.like way. I may go further and refer to the disabilities under which those who deal in fire, wood and sawn timber have to carry on. It has become a standing joke amongst them how few tmcks turn . up. Let me repeat that at the end of one firm with an out_ & put of per day, during Vthe last eight days of (September ordered for each working day ten trucks, and out of the aggregate of eighty trucks seven turned up—that meant, of course that seventy-throe truck loads of timber that had been carted to the station had to be taken off the trucks and re.stacked, and handled again when trucks became available. Well over 2<*a,oo<J feet of timber to be re.handled by one firm, and as flon - members know timber cannot be handled for nothing and to my knowledge this state of affairs • exists over the whole of the Ohakune .section. Now I want to make a special point of clearing the local officials of any blame # I know the position well. From time to time I have made enquiries, because it is my business to keep in close touch With them, and I want to say without hesitation that they » have done all in their power. The ■ fault lies with the head of the Dc. partment, through not having provided sufficient stock to enable them to do their business in anything like an efficient and business-like man. ner. There is a demand, and a very real one, for; increased production in this country, but how can a country produce anything like its maximum if its industries are hung up in this way? Anyone who understands this subject Avill find that during the sum. mer months four-fifths of the whole of the produce that is conveyed over the railways has to handled a sec. ond time. Just imagine what this costs in labour, and what it repre. sents in money. Would it not be very much better if those whose time is taken •up in that way were pro. , ducing moTe? As an instance of what can be done if business meth. eds *are adopted, I wish to refer to what took place directly after the last "cut." There was a cut of j6omething like }two months, during 1 which time no sawn timber was J carried on the railways. It was de_ cided by the Railway Department, directly traffic was resumed, that as a means of getting N the large stocks of timber cleared from the mills, an officer of the Department should be* stationed at Taihape to enable him to keep in teuch with the head! of the sawmilling industry there, and .... within two months the whole of the timber that had been piled up for previous two months had been \ cleared, and in addition all that the mills had produced during, the latter two months had also been cleared, and for the first time for many years the railways started with a clean sheet. Now\that is a startling and a conclusive example of what can be done where business methods are applied. I shall not keep the House any longer beyond-asking the Minister when he replies, to answer the questions I have asked.