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ROAD COMPETITION. The problem of road competition, both in regard to passenger and goods business, has continued to give the Department much concern. While the Commercial Branch has maintained its efforts to increase the goods traffic wherever possible and to regain any that lias been diverted to the road, the matter of competition for passenger traffic, urban as well as suburban, has also been receiving attention. With regard to goods traffic it may be said that most of the sources of possible traffic of any considerable volume have been explored, and that the steps taken either to induce new traffic or to attract back to the railway lost traffic have had extremely satisfactory results. It is not the intention to relax our efforts in connection with goods traffic, but it is considered that special attention should be given to the passenger side. It is hardly necessary to point out that motor competition is of very recent origin, and that prior to its advent the State railways had for many years, by low fares and reasonably adequate train services, without profit, enabled city workers to live in congenial surroundings in the suburbs. With the arrival of the motor-car and motor-bus, however, enterprising owners have seized the opportunity offered by good roads, absence of regulation, and inadequate taxation of road vehicles to step in and divert from the railway the best of the surburban traffic which this Department had created and fostered. These road services do not display any anxiety to carry workers to and from their work at fares that are comparable with those charged by the Department, and which range from 2Jd. per trip up to seven miles, 2Jd. up to ten miles, to 4|d. per trip for twenty miles, iior do they provide rollingstock to handle this peak-load traffic. Apart from interest on the capital invested in providing and forming the railway-line, it costs the Department an average of £369 a year to maintain each mile of line, as compared with the relatively small annual license fee paid by road vehicles. While the greater mobility of road vehicles is beyond question, it is necessary that all the various factors should be taken into consideration and carefully assessed before the conclusion is come to that they possess advantages beyond existing means of transportation, a conclusion which may involve enormous and recurring financial loss to the Dominion. The present position, in so far as this Department is concerned, may be summed up as follows : After developing and encouraging suburban traffic for many years at unremunerative fares, the privately owned buses have come in and are catering for only that portion of the business which is profitable, leaving the low-fare, peak-load traffic to the railways. The question then arises as to the remedies that are available to the Department —whether to discontinue suburban passenger services and thus reduce costs of operating, or to go on. the roads to regain that portion of the passenger traffic which has been diverted, so as to enable the railways to continue to render to the community that wider general service which has been their aim. THE NEW ZEALAND RAILWAYS MAGAZINE. Arrangements were made early in the present year for the publication of an official journal by the Department with the object of improving the relations between different branches of the service by providing a common ground for publicity, and also with a view to keeping the Department's clients posted in the progress of railway affairs. The first issue was produced in May, and was most cordially received both by the public and by the seventeen thousand employees amongst whom it was distributed. The magazine is being used for the general purposes of advertising, or (to use the later American word) " selling " the Department to the section of the public most interested in railway operation, while at the same time supplying information to the staff on matters directly affecting their daily work and the general development of transport. Such topics as the economic principles of railroading, co-operation in industry, improvements in organization, safety-first methods, and matter of general educational or welfare value are featured in the journal. Space is also found for descriptive matter regarding the various rail-served pleasure resorts in New Zealand, while opportunity is given for the publication of notes of a social nature regarding matters likely to be of general interest to members of the service. It is hoped by publishing authoritative descriptions of operations in the various departmental offices, work-shops, stations, goods-sheds, signal-cabins, &c., to increase the interest of each section of the service in the work performed by other portions—to broaden the outlook of members towards the work upon which they are engaged, and, by the spread of railway knowledge, to produce greater individual and co-operative efficiency. TARIFF. The new tariff, the revision of which was approaching completion when the Board's report for last year was submitted, came into operation on the 31st August, 1925, and, as the result of the discussions which took place with the representatives of the various interests involved, the changes decided upon were arranged so as to operatejwith a minimum of disturbance to the business interests affected. In the " Passenger " section two features new to the Dominion railways were introduced, and while both have gained popularity in the comparatively short time that has elapsed since the tariffwas issued, there is no doubt- that as they become more widely known their benefits will be availed of to a much greater extent than has been the case up to the present time. These are trip bearer family tickets. Trip bearer tickets are issued in two forms—twelve trips or fifty trips ; the former is sold at a discount of 12| per cent, off the price of six ordinary return tickets, and the latter at a discount of 20 per cent, off the price of twenty-five ordinary return tickets. They are

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