RAILWAY POLICY.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 May 1922, Page 7

RAILWAY POLICY.

CHANGES ANNOUNCED. BOARD OF ADVICE. TARIFF TO BE REVISED. Feilding, May 10. Some of the details ofthe new railway policy of the Government were given by the Prime Minister in his speech at Feilding to-night. “Nothing is more important to a new country than that it should have. satis : factory means of communication,” said Mr. Massey. “It should have good road and railway facilities within its own territories, and it should also have good sea communications with the other countries of the world. As to our railways, I am aware that there has been a certain amount of dissatisfaction with their methods of working, and an endeavour is now being made by the Acting Minister of Railways and the General Manager to bring about a more satisfactory state of affairs. A certain amount of progress has been made, but there still remains a good deal to be done.

It is intended to alter the present management procedure by the setting up of a board of expert railway men, to consist of representatives of the traffic department, the maintenance department, and the locomotive department, to assist the General Manager in the arduous tasks which he has on hand. It is also intended to appoint a business agent for the North Island and for the •South Island—one for each island—to confer with the users of the railways who may have grievances to ventilate or improvements to suggest. Where it is possible and desirable to give effect to these ideas, it will be the policy of the Department to see that they are carried out.

“The railway tariff is also being revised, but financial considerations make it impossible for us to do as much as we should like to do in this respect. However, anomalies will be removed, and in a number of instances reductions in freight will be made. “Motor traffic is now competing very seriously with the railways in those districts of the Dominion where roads are I good, and there is no doubt that motor traffic has come to stay. An effort will be made to utilise this traffic to provide feeders to the railways, rather than to allow it to go on coming into competition with them. In some cases arrangements may be made for the Railway Department to run its own motors for the purpose of collecting and delivering goods, but though these necessary reforms will take some little time to come into full effect, the Government is determined that no effort shall be wanting to make the railways more useful to the people who own them.”