OUR RAILWAYS.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 September 1919, Page 4

OUR RAILWAYS.

The Railway Department, we are told, "has adopted the principle that it would bo a suicidal policy to resume the full time-table until it is clear that ample supplies of coal will be available from time to time." Ii the Department has adopted that principle it had batter lose no time in dropping it. The most suicidal policy that can possibly be adopted in this Dominion is to prolong, even for a single unnecessary day, the disorganisation of the railway service. The position is acute enough in all conscience. Industry and commerce are being hampered in a hundred directions, the country is losing thousands of pounds a day through the failure of the railways to earn their own keep, and from one end of the Dominion to the other there is a serious congestion of goods traffic which is entailing national loss to an incalculable amount. Tho railways are the arteries of the Dominion's industrial and commercial life, and the task of the Railway Department is to keep them functioning. To say that they rfiust continue congested until there is an absolute guarantee that they will never be blocked again is the most absolute nonsense. There has never, at any time, been the possibility of such a guarantee, and a railway that will only run when its coal supplies are in sight for twelve months ahead is likely to be idle most of its days. There wag never any really valid excuse for the present cut, for the business of the Railway Department is to run the railways, not to curtail the service. Not only is there no excuse for failure to resume a full service now that ample supplies of coal are available, but such failure will be regarded as a well-night criminal neglect of duty. It is time that the Railway Department [ was reminded that it is responsible to I the public; .that its function is to run the railways; and that the running of the railways is an essential service, sot an indulgent concession to a luxury-loving community. The sooner that point of View is regained by the Railway Department the better will it be both for the prosperity of the country and the revenue of the State. If Mr. Massey wishes to create a good impression in his new role as Minister of Railways he will quit talking about "improvements" and the necessity for retaining the permit system, and at once restore the serviccto the condition from which it should never have been allowed to lapse.— Lyttelton Times.