The Press Thursday, September 4, 1930. The Railways.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20024, 4 September 1930, Page 19

The Press Thursday, September 4, 1930. The Railways.

The Railways Statement, copious extracts from which were printed in Thx Press yesterday, is introduced by the Minister with a curious apology. He has been in office for so short a time, he says, that he has been able to do no more than adopt measures necessary "to effect immediate economy." Had he done this energetically and resolutely, he would have had a better right to unfurl his umbrella; but, such as it is, it gives him little cover, and the Government, of course, none at all. The Government has been in office for nearly two years, during which, as Mr Forbes explained a few months ago, it has been fully aware of the railway position it had to face. Reviewing the national finances at the end of May, Mr Forbes reminded the country that Sir Joseph Ward had foreseen and declared the position to which railway finances were drifting; and this means, of course, that the Government cannot, even if Mr Veitch after a fashion can, plead that it 4as "not had in "opportunity." Further, since the Government was—or ought to have been—deeply impressed with the necessity of giving the railways uninterrupted attention, it is difficult to understand why the portfolio of Railways was allowed to change hands when Mr Forbes formed his Ministry. Mr Yeitch and Mr Taverner became each I the other's successor, a specially odd i example of the reshuffling in the Cabinet, to the danger of which The Press drew attention at the time; and the proof of it appears now in Mr Veitch's apology. Public necessity will not wait for learners to catch up with it. If Mr Veitch is in his novitiate, the Government is not. Though it has had the best part of two years to frame its railways policy, on the basis of the known facts, its second Railways Statement asks the public to be satisfied with prospects of action to-morrow or the day after. The Minister has not done much, he admits; nothing "com"prehensive" will be done until the Royal Commission's report is received and considered. That is to say, the Government is like Mr Winkle, announcing that .it is " just going to "begin"; but for two years tremendous losses have been going on. Nothing in the Statement suggests that the Government has the slightest notion of how to stop them. The General Manager's report, included in the Statement, closes on a defensive note of a different kind. Mr Sterling stresses the " inapplicability "of the Revenue and Expenditure Ac- " count as a test of managerial effi"ciency," which he estimates, by other standards, in * sentence statingthat " the service has been given at the low- " est cost that the circumstances per- " mitted of." It is quite true that the test is not exact, unless the results are interpreted with full knowledge; but there is plenty of evidence in the Statement to show that "the lowest costs " that the circumstances permitted of " are not nearly low enough. What are "the circumstances" that compel therailways, as the Minister said in July, to run "far more train miles than is "necessary to carry on the business"? That compel the railways to carry nearly 1000 more employees this year than last? Mr Sterling may submit that "during the year the best has " been done, so far as the management "is concerned, within the limits of the "system"; but the answer is that the best is not yet good enough.