RAILWAY POLICY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 198, 22 August 1928, Page 10

RAILWAY POLICY.

"SAVE SOME OF THE WRECK" PREMIER JUSTIFIES BTft SPENDING. MOTOR BUSES AND RAILWAY WORKSHOPS. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLING TON, Tuesday. Possibly those who looked at the huge construction of workshops at Christchurch, Dunedin, Hutt and Otahuhu might wonder at what it was all about, remarked the Prime Minister in the House to-night. He proceeded to explain what the workshops meant. He believed, he said, that the Estimates were working out right, and they would save a quarter of a million £? year after paying interest on the capital cost of these works.

It would mean that they could run with fewer men, as machinery would take their place, but the Railway Department could arrange this without any gTeat disability to the employees. To those who were complaining about money being borrowed and wasted he would say, "Come out into the open and say where." As a matter of fact the expenditure on railway 6hops was long overdue. He enumerated other large railway works, asking members which ones they would stop when the Auck-land-Penrose duplication came into the category ?

Mr. Lee (Auckland East) remarked laughingly: "I'll admit it's pretty hard when it comes into your own backvard."

Increased Tonnage Wanted.

Mr. Coates said it was impossible for anything but a railway to give New Zealand an economic transport service. Last year the service cost 2.41 d per ton mile. It would cost at least a shilling and in some districts 1/6 to provide a similar service by motor. What expensive roads would be reqtiired, and how could concessions be made to coal, timber, fertiliser, stock, farming, and commercial interests? There could be no concession without railways. If the railways had earned 2.56 d per ton mile last year the earning power would have been increased bv £300,000, or if they 'tad earned eight points under threepence per mile, the railways would have earned £1.000,000 more. "Bigger earnings would be possible only with in-| creased tonnage. It would be bad business to foree up the rates and competition, even though they could operate only in selected areas.

Railways As Bus Owners. Mr. Coates suggested that the only definite statement to which the Nationalist Leader had committed himself was that the Railway Department should not run motor buses. Should it sit down and allow deficits to pile upT Mr. Forbes t That will not improve it. Mr. Coates asked how else could the position be retrieved? He fead nothing but the highest admiration for what the Railway Board had done, and he intended to put on record what it had been responsible for.

Mr. H. E. Holland: Why did you empty them out? Mr. Coates: I made a statement why we changed. (Laughter.) There Is no catch in it. The chairman's time was up, and other members had only very little time to go, so it would have meant carrying on twelve months and making another change. Mr. Holland: Under the authority of what Act? Mr. Coates: We will bring an Act before Parliament, and the hon. gentleman will have an opportunity of saying whether he agrees with It. Returning to the question of railway buses, Mr. Coates said the 'Government took the responsibility for that. There were sixty-four railways in America owning lorries and buses; four of the Australian States and South Africa were doing the same. The Government had developed the Hutt Valley, when motor transport threatened its trade to such an extent that it was running empty trains, with definite commitments to seasonal and workers' ticketholders. They could not run competitive buses, but they took over the whole service on a business basis, and would now see whether it was possible that the Railway Department could successfully run a fleet of buses in conjunction with the railway service. "Here is a huge system with fifty millions capital, which in a few years will be seventy millions," concluded Mr. Coates. "Are we to sit down and allow this to go to pieces "without an endeavour to demonstrate it possible to save some of the wreck at any rate?"