“Rise Essential”

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30555, 25 September 1964, Page 3

“Rise Essential”

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, Sept. 24. . The recent freight rate increases were no more than were essential to enable the railways to cover expenditure and to continue to be able to provide a reasonable service, the assistant-General Manager of Railways (Mr I. Thomas) said today in reply to Mr L. S. Milburn, president of the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce. Mr Thomas said:— “In the Minister’s orginal announcement of August 7, he said general freight rates would be increased by about 2} per cent. But he also said —and this is what Mr Milburn appears to have overlooked—that the charges for short-haul traffic, lightlyloaded waggons and small lots of goods would be increased substantially.

“When some details of the new rates and charges were released early in September, the Minister’s announcement said a completely new scale of charges had been drawn up, mainly with the objective of obtaining a more adequate return from small lots of goods, short-haul traffic and lightly-loaded waggons and that, otherwise, and I would stress the word otherwise, the new charges would generally be only about 2j per cent higher than at present.

“Unfortunately, the word ‘otherwise’ appears to have been omitted in several published versions of the announcement and this undoubtedly has given the wrong impression.”