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Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2417, 7 January 1888, Page 2

The question of filling the important and responsible position of Chief Commissioner of Eailways, created under the Government Eailways Act a?, the late session, is agitating tho minds of official circles in Wellington. It is reported that numerous applications from a number of ambitious officers of the Bail way Department have been received by tho Government, all of whom are not behindhand in enlarging on their own superior abilities and claims to fill the post, at tho same time giving reasons why an expert from abroad should not" bo selected. Whatever these latter reasons may be, of this we are convinced, that no one in this colony possesses the qualifications and capacity absolutely necessary to undertake the onerous duties of re-organ-ising, through and through, our present wretchedly managed system. The principal heads of the department have been trained in a wrong groove, and are imbued more or less deeply with theabominafcionshatched under the Maxwellian regime, from which the country has long suffered until its patience has become exhausted. If the new plan of manipulating the railways of the colony by moans of an independent Board of Commissioners is to succeed, nothing less than a complete revolution in the whole scheme of management, with tin." inauguration of an entirely new policy, will secure that end. Tho man tit and able to do this does not live in the colony. Wo require an expert of conspicuous ability, who has made railway business in all its branches his speciality and _ life study, one who has had experience in sonic of the busiest and most important linos of the worjd compared to which our own aro mere toys. We need a man with the innate genius for construction and organic satiou, not one of those we already have so many of in the service who are perpetually tinkering and experimenting with the tariffs and time-tables at tiio expense of the country at large, without the faculty of making any of tljejr attempts fit in with the real requirements of particular districts. Tho man to comprehend our wants, able to grapplo with the task and overcome all difficulties must bo found

in England or America., and when foundj neither j;1500 nor £2000 a year would be an oxcossive salary to pay him. We are, therefore, pleased to notice, that the Government announce their fixed determination to select a commissioner in the countries we have named, a resolution we trust they will rigidly adhere to.