Evening Post.

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 82, 3 October 1929, Page 8

Evening Post.

Parliament in its handling of the railways has produced no/policy save a policy of half measures. First of all, Parliament played with the principle of commercialisation; it ordered the commercialising of the operations,, but riot of v the policy. Then it took tip the idea of compensation for unprofitable service, and ordered'the taxpayer to compensate the railways for certain non-paying sections of line; but all the other non-paying services on the system as a whole remain uncompensated. Thus, in applying two leading principles, Parliament went half-way and then stopped; it expressly admitted obligations which it has failed to shoulder in their entirety, and it stands self-convicted of illogic. We have said "Parliament" lest the use of the word "Government" might be construed as meaning an indictment of a particular Government — the Massey, or the Coates, or even the Ward. No such particularisation is intended, because in railway policy all Governments seem to be tarred with the same brush. There is a general disinclination to face all the implications that a principle involves. The management is asked to balance the incomings and outgoings—provided that freights and fares, the basis of incomings, are not raised against sheltered users, including farmer and worker. Also, it is decreed that the railways shall be subsidised against policy-dictated deficits, but the subsidy must stop dead | when the train reaches a non-subsidy set of rails, while the train and its unremunerative load steams gaily onward.

If the shipping companies were asked to provide the most economical sea carriage that marine architecture and crew-management can provide, with the stipulation that they must take their freight instructions from the Farmers-Union, something would probably occur that would be stigmatised by the Seamen's Union as a lock-out. Yet the management of the New Zealand Railways is asked to do a similar thing and smile. The management must satisfy both farmers and employees, and must carry the responsibility for deficits without having corresponding authority over the sources of income. It must not lock out, nor reduce wages, nor on its own motion raise freights and fares; and, according to the General Manager's report, it must not expect reciprocative support from some of the farmers, unless it wishes to invite disappointment. On suburban sections the railways may carry seasonticket holders at a farthing a mile, and workers at even less, but its acceptance of that necessary but unremunerative traffic will not prevent its being deprived of the bulk of the profitable passengers by motor services that, in some cases at any rate! do not run on a cost basis. Summing up his representations on that aspect of the road competition, the General Manager observes:

Experience has shovra.tlial tho question of cost has a very remote influence .... Not only does the road competition take the higher-paying passenger traffic; in the' higher-paying goods also the motor competitor finds his special field. If the praqtice continues of "allowing, the road motors to take high-class goods, while leaving those in the lower classes to the railways," then "the expenses hitherto recovered from passenger or high-grade goods traffic must be recovered from the business that remains or be passed on to the taxpayer." This is, in brief, the railways dilemma. On which horn has Parliament chosen to rest? A little bit on both, but without comfort on either, and without finality. In the first place, the "passing on to the taxpayer" is limited to subsidy on certain sections, as if the unpaying services were localised instead of being general. In the second place, "the business that remains" did become subject some years ago to higher freights—as, for instance- timber, which has groaned ever since—but the sum total of all that has been done by subsidy and by schedule revision has not prevented the large deficit revealed in the Minister's statement —a deficit which commands attention, yet which cannot fairly be regarded as the measure of railway achievement so long as "the whole of the return to the community ... is not reflected in the railway revenue statement." If commercialisation is to be adopted to the extent of compelling low-rated goods to pay, then—

The cost of primary production will rise owing to increased freights on such low-rated goods as coal, fertilisers, timber, grain, fruit, live-stock, and road metal, whether for long or short distances.

Primary producers will protest, but their protest will not solve the problem of how to raise freights on other goods where motor competition is effective, or how- to bleed the taxpayer of the fiil I amount due as compensation for unpaid services, or how to continue an aimless policy of deficit. Having walked a little way

down this street, and a little way' down that street, Parliament has paused, baffled; and for some little time all that the politicians have been doing is to wait for something to turn vp r . To call them back to action, what is needed is a cold, clear-cut analysis of the situation^ and the outlook—a candid stock-tak-ing such as the General Manager, iin this, his first annual report, has set out impartially and pointedly.* He deals with realities, and he gives both Parliament and public something to think about. Cannot a new Government make some effort to end the deadlock? Can it not pause a moment in the task of planning new additions qf losing line—new Kirikopunis with a Southern complexion—in order to find some means of dealing with the deficit which is either a danger to economics in its reality, or, in its unreality, an injus|tice to the railwaymen? Lastly, if the Government cannot itself find a way out, has it the courage of self- | effacement—the pluck to de-politi-calise the rail ways, on Canadian lines and give them a chance by their own efforts to swim or sink?