RAILWAY MANAGEMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 April 1939, Page 6

RAILWAY MANAGEMENT

MR HAMILTON’S CRITICISM, REPLY BY MINISTER. , (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. “It is singularly appropriate and indicates a totally unexpected sense of humour on the part of Mr Hamilton that he should have held over his further attempt at fooling the people of New Zealand insofar as railway matters.are concerned in order to ensure that, it should appeal- in the Press of the ‘Dominion’ on the morning of April 1,” said the Minister of Railways, Mr Sullivan, in replying to a further statement by the Leader of the National Party, regarding railway costs.

“Mr Hamilton made the statement at Rotorua that the Railways Department is not paying working expenses,” said Mr Sullivan. “He stated in the clearest possible terms that for every £lOO earned by the New Zealand Railways for the financial year to date, it has cost £lO3 9s to get it. He has quoted certain figures from the Abstract of Statistics. to substantiate his statement, but he omits to mention the figures he quotes are qualified by the Government Statistician by a footnote on page 22 of the Abstract of Statistics for December, 1938, quoted by Mr Hamilton and which rgads as follows: ’—“Excluding inter alia road motor services.”

“If Mr Hamilton is not aware of the meaning of ‘inter alia’ his advisers should have informed him that ‘inter alia’ means ‘among other things’ and that the figures shown do not refer to the whole of the department’s business.

“I would point out to Mr Hamilton that the only way to obtain a correct percentage of expenses to revenue is to ascertain the gross revenue, to ascertain also the gross expenses and to work out the percentages from these figures. This is the course adopted in working out the percentage of expenses to revenue as submitted by me and are the figures used in the annual railway statement, the accounts included in which must be certified as correct by the Auditor General before presentation to Parliament.

"To illustrate the position I need only quote the following examples:— Percentage of expenditure to revenue for portion of - business shown by the Government Statistician, for the year ended March 31, 1937, 91.81 per cent; the percentage of total working expenses to gross earnings as shown in the annual railways statement for the year ended March 31, 1937, 88.40 per cent; for the year ended March 1, 1938, the figures were 96.05 per cent, and 92.67 per cent respectively. “It is quite conceivable that under a different set of circumstances the portions of the undertaking excluded from the Government Statistician’s figures might show a heavy loss and the percentage of expenditure to revenue for the whole undertaking be higher than those shown in the Abstract of Statistics. It would be ridiculous then to claim a false percentage which could not be substantiated in the revenue returns.

“I am not aware of the sources from which Mr Hamilton obtained his figures regarding increased staff in the Locomotive Department, but in view of the fact that the total number of enginedrivers, firemen and cleaners at March 31. 1938, was less than 2500, Mr Hamilton’s statement that their number was increased by 3232 men in the past four years is so palpably incorrect as to require no further comment.