The Waipa Post. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY. TUESDAY, MAY 23, 1911. OUR RAILWAYS.

Waipa Post, Volume I, Issue 11, 23 May 1911, Page 2

The Waipa Post. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY. TUESDAY, MAY 23, 1911. OUR RAILWAYS.

CAN the people of New Zealand say that the railways really do belong to them. We very much doubt it. For the time being at all events, it would appear as if the railways /belonged to and were the absolute property of the Hon. J. A. Millar. He who poses as a Democrat, and was put in his position by a Democratic people, rules and acts as an absolute Autocrat of the first water. We are led to speak in this fashion by seeing that this autocratic person has generously given permission for a passenger carriage to be attached to the goods trains leaving Frankton at 7 a.m., and Te Kuiti at 9 p.m. for a trial period of three months. This matter has agitated the public mind for a long time now, and in response to repeated requests from the various bodies interested, the Hon. Mr Millar yields to the pressure of public opinion and grants the travelling public 'of the Upper Waikato and King Country, the inestimable boon of travelling on a goods train at four miles an hour for three months. When we remember that up to the present there has been no train leaving Frankton for the South earlier than 1.40 p.m., and no matter how urgent and pressing a person’s business was, they could not get away from Hamilton to any place South earlier in the day than 1.40 p.m., it does seem that it is about time the people asked the autocratic Minister if he or they owned the railways. When public facilities are thus grudgingly given; when the regular services are completely disorganised by a little extra traffic, as we see every holiday season, when the service is seething with dissatisfaction and discontent, is it not time that some one had the courage to point these things out to the Honourable Minister, and ask him, if it is not high time he made way for a more competent man. We are tired, dog-tired, of this Autocrat, giving here, and refusing there, with no desire or wish to help the travelling public. At the present time the New Zealand railways are not owned by the people, nor do they run for the convenience of the people. The travelling public are the last persons to receive consideration from the Minister, whose one aim and purpose is to make the railways pay interest on their construction. And it appears as if it is impossible to make the Minister see, how districts are kept back for want of convenient trains, and the public put to no end of trouble, simply because the railways are not wisely managed and trains run at convenient times. We are a long-suffering people, no doubt, But there are bounds beyond which it is not safe for anyone to go, and wc venture to assert that the people are sick to death ot this muddling mis-management.

We have no desire to draw comparisons between the North and South, but we cannot help a feeling of envy, as we see the train services—two expresses every day there —and compare them with our wretchedly inadequate services in the North. If the revenue in the North was declining, it might give the Minister ah excuse for refusing so ' many requests, but the irony of the thing lies in the fact that the North Island is paying handsomely Month by month the revenue is steadily rising in spite of all drawbacks, and yet we may be granted as a favour what should be given as a right, and would no doubt be givqn readily by a man who understood the principles of railway management. The Minister expects this carriage to pay the Department in a three months’ trial, and yet the train runs at any time, no timetable being published, and passengers are not catered for in any sense whatever. They must wait interminable hours for the train, and get to their destination at any time that happens to suit the Department. And vet in spite of these and other drawbacks, we can only have a three months’ trial and it must pay. Anything more ridiculous can scarcely be imagined, and it savours more of farce than of fact, but these are the things we have to put up with under the present regime, but it must come to an end.