Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878] TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1892. RAILWAY COMMISSIONERS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4223, 20 September 1892, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878]

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1892. RAILWAY COMMISSIONERS.

BeISO IDE EXTENDED TITLE OF Tll e Waikarapa Daily, with which it jg IDKHTICAL.

The three unfortunates who, in an evil moment for their peace of mind, personal dignity, and worldly prosperity, accepted office as Commissioners of Railways, are entitled to to the respectful sympathy of all fair-minded men. That they knew, when they undertook their present duties, how capricious is publio favour in New Zealand, we may reasonably assume, since each of these gen tlemen has resided for many years in the Colony and witnessed the" ebb and ffow_ of many a wave of popular opinion. But not the most oynioal and seasoned public servant could have foreseen the calculated impertinences which the Government has set itself to shower upon the Commissioners. It is not too much to say that with the insight into Ministerial methods furnished by this session of Parliament, it would be difficult to find any three 'gentlemen willing to step into the shoes of Messrs McKerrow, Maxwell, and Hannayif, that is, they added lo the necessary knowledge and capacity an average amount of self-respect, Why it is that the Government is determined to pick a quarrel with the Commissioners, is a question which perhaps we must not ask too curioußly. If we say that the present occupants of the Treasury benches are keenly alive to the importance of securing the centralisation of patronage, we shall be told that wo aro dropping into the vulgarity of imputing motives, And, indeed, we are not much concerned to insist on this point, since we quite believe that the Government is acting to bomb extent on its political principles, There is, we can see, a subtle necessity laid upon Liberalism to regulate everything for us. " Government by the people for the people" means, it would seem, that the more completely individualism is abßorbftd into State control, the happier we shall be. As, then, it is the duty of the State, in this view, to exercise a domioiliary inspection ol our private lives, to see that we do not work too longer get too rich, and to tell us how we should leave ouiproperty when we die, so we can quite understand that such a factor in the citizen's life as his means of locomotion should be the lawful charge ol a minister of State, without .the intervention of any Board or Corporation whatsoever, From birth to death we are the proper object of the Government's tender care; and the pbalmint was prophetic of true liberalism when lie sang "Kings shall be thy nursing fathers "—if for" Kings" we read " Department#."

That this theory is a reasonable explanation of the systematic effort r to depreciate the Commissioners shown, we think, by the circumstance that coinoidently with the first attack on our own railway management the "Liberal" Governments of Victoria and New South Wales were conducting a similar campaign against the Commissioners of Railways in those colonies, It is true that a very moderate success in the end attended their eflorts, that they were badly beaten in the attempt to blacken the Commissioners, that they were practically forced to make terms with them; but Ministers had at least delivered their souls, they had contended for 'a principle, and they wero vehemently applauded by their fellow-Liberals. Though to the weaker brethren they seemed to bo merely assailing the management of the Railways, it was but their way of teaching: tlio world that there is only One Responsibility and. that .Ministers are its prophets, ; It is to be regretted that a Government, which 1 believes a particular course.to be right, should be. found sidling towards its object instead of making boldly for it. On (he ,Ministerial assumption that our wlwpys have been badly managed since the appointmentof Commissioners, tho Government Railways Act Amendment Bill of Mr Seddon is a miserable halfmeasure. It does not abolish the Commissioners—it merely reduoes their salaries by a few hundreds per annum, It does not place a" Minister of Railways" in full oharge—it merely creates an offioial with tbis style and

title whose business shall be to veto any and every not of the Comroia- ( sionera whenever he thinks fit. The ' humiliation of these gentlemen is the ' aim of the Bill, rather than their present supersession. They are to lie' snubbed into resigning, But if this 1 Bill indicates a policy of indignity, what shall be said of those clauses 1 in the Industrial Conciliation Bill , which relate to railway matters! This ! latter Bill goes out of its way to accord formal recognition to "The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants," a body which, is really ruled by irresponsible persons having no connection with the rail' way service. The Bill virtually compels the Commissioners' employes to join this Society as the only way of getting a footing in the proposed Arbitration Court, The Bill ostentatiously denies to the Court the right to deal with individual complainants, it is from firßt to last a piece of spe« oial pleading in favour of Unionism, and where it interferes between the Commissioners and their men, it does so in order to give the former a slap in the lace. For, if this Bill becomes law, the Government will have set its imprimatur upon iho very Society whose locus standi ms explicitly challenged by tho Commissioners themselves. We do not propose to discußS in this article the singular doctrine that the relations between the Commissioners of Railways and the railway servants can and should be the same as those which subsist between-any large employer of labour and his employk For onr own part we hold that if this view is sound as regards railway matters, it should be applied no less to all other depigments; the right of appeal to the Arbitration Board should be given to members of every branch of the Civil Service—which iB absurd, as Euclid would say, But we desire to call attention to the third and latest attempt at cast» ing contumely upon the Commissioners. Certain confused questions about locomotives were asked in the I House a few days ago by Mr Sandford, and they were referred to the Commissioners to be answered. They were answered—briefly, no doubt, for the Commissioners could not fail to appreciate the unfriendliness of their intention. However, it seems that Mr Seddon saw fit to suppress a part of the answer. Then he represented to the Houso that the Commissioners' reply was ovasive on matters of fact and improper in its language. If it were not for its revelation of determined ilUwill to

these hapless officials, Mr Seddon's criticism of their communication would be hugely entertaining to any otic who took the trouble to compare the elip-shod and slangy language of the Minister of Public Wois with the dear, terse, dignified, and incisive writing of the Commissioners of RailWays. The Commissioners are much too wide awake to wreck themselves on evasions of fact or improprieties of expression ; and Mr Seddon had bettor not engage them in a war or words, since they would simply rake] him fore and aft, Nevertbless charges of this kind have an unpleasant significance. However clearly they may be demonstrated to be untrue, they are straws which show the way the wind blows—and it blows adversely for Commissioners just now. They will hayo to go—unless tho present) Government should happen to go first. And if the railway management is placed onc« more under parliamentary control, it will be in commission with a vengtance; every Government supporter will have a say,lbe jobbery and political line-making of. tho past will be revived, and we shall be able to cover our railway surplus with a gooseberry leaf,. )