POLITICAL INTERFERENCE.
That the railways are not. run on business -lines is clear from a statement made by the General Manager in his annual report. It is as follows: —
“The existing conditions necessitate serious consideration being devoted to the question of whether the Department is to run at a loss services that in the past were laid on as a pure convenience, or to provide only services that are essential to meet the reasonable and legitimate business requirements of the country.”
The General Manager frankly states that every proposal to run the service on business lines lias so far met with opposition from end to end of the Dominion. rhe inference is, of course, that Ministers are susceptible to the influence exerted by the public and will not sanction the cutting out of services that do not pay. It is a condition that no business should Be asked to accept. How can the railways be made to pay when certain services are absolutely unprofitable, anil the manager has his bands tied in a way which prevents him from cutting them down ? The South Island 'services are a ease in question. They have been a burden on taxpayers for the past four years, and this year they are already over £300,000 behind working expenses, without taking into consideration interest charges, which would bring the losses to nearly a million sterling. These may be trains of “convenience,” but they are very costly ones to the taxpayers, who haye to bear the losses. Here the Government has an excellent opportunity of practising the economy it has been preaching so loudly of late. Tlie railways should be put on an efficient commercial basis, and the management given an opportunity to show what it can do without political interference. This has always been suspected id the past; now the General Manager has boldly stated it is one of the causes why the railways are losing at the rate of £4OOO a day. On may conclude that the same interference is largely responsible for the present hampering labor conditions, under which no railways, however well managed, can be made to pay their way.
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Taranaki Daily News, 26 January 1922, Page 4
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357POLITICAL INTERFERENCE. Taranaki Daily News, 26 January 1922, Page 4
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