RAILWAY RETRENCHMENT.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20245, 25 May 1931, Page 16

RAILWAY RETRENCHMENT.

FURTHER ECONOMY MEASURES. "It is difficult to say how many officers will apply to retire under the conditions laid down," said the Minister for Railways, the Hon. W. A. Veitch, last evening, discussing the economy measures recently taken in his Department. "There will be some moro, but I cannof say how many. A considerable proportion of those affected have already retired. Each case is considered on its merits as the applications come to hand." The men discharged recently at the Hillside workshops had been engaged for capital purposes, the time and need for which have now passed. In general terms that applied to all of the men whose services had been dispensed with, and it entirely depended on the conditions whether further economy measures of such a nature would be required. Men engaged on the same terms as those at Hillside had been discharged throughout, the Dominion, including a number at Addington. The Railway Department was suffering from the trade depression, just as private business was, and its revenue had fallen off considerably. There was no call for' the same number of employees as formerly, and the Department was reducing the total to that required.