The Press Saturday, November 29, 1924. Railway Methods.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18243, 29 November 1924, Page 12

The Press Saturday, November 29, 1924. Railway Methods.

A cynic might say of the circular sent by Mr Coates to Traffic Managers i and Stationmasters that it is a devastating exposure of the official mind. If a responsible officer has to be told when and how to open his mouth and when to close it, confidence in his activities is not easy. We should hardly have believed that stationmasters have not been encouraged to report to headquarters when "their '' ratos do not permit of their securing " traffic," that they have not made use of their "ample opportunity to " obtain particulars of the traffic in " tho neighbourhood of their station," and are not "ready at all times with " factß and figures" to prove the advantage of doing business with the service. We should not like to think what would happen to tho district manager of a privato carrying company who had to bo told that he "should be a man " capable of giving helpful informa- " tion to tourists and others," and who did not "understand that time " occupied in assisting passengers, '' tourists and others out of their diffi- " culties is time well spent." Yet if it really is true that the Minister of Railways depends on men who have not yet learnt the A B C of business we must accept his circular as a sign that the lessons havo now begun. And in many respects it unfortunately is true. Within the narrow range in which they have been accustomed to work, railway officers can be very efficient: it is i pleasure to note their brisk responses in a ticket-box, for example, their skjjl with time-tables, and the amount of information they can bury in a page of their tariff. . Js'o one wishes to say or suggest of them that they have less [than the ordinary amount of "grey | matter," that as individuals they lack courtesy and common-sense, or that they would, if they could, as officials empty every platform and goods-shod and keep the trains running as splendid toys. It is one of tho unpleasant results of the method by which tho railways have been run that it provokes comments which seem to involve thousands of honest and diligent compatriots in a general charge of indolcnco and stupidity. But the proof of what the service has cbinc to is written in. crsry line of this circular Mr Coates may havo saifi teo much or too little, and ho ins; have been very unkind to say any of it in public, but the truth is that the instructions given are puerile because tho service has become puerile, and could not in one lesson absorb anything more advanced. We are glad, as everybody must be, that the Department, instead of waiting for business, and even discouraging it, is now at last begging for it; but we cannot feel very hopeful of the future when wo have such a legacy from the past.