ON BUSINESS LINES

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 68, 14 December 1931, Page 10

ON BUSINESS LINES

N.Z.’s Railway System TRANSPORT PROBLEMS Mr. H.H. Sterling’s Views Opinions that New Zealand’s railways would have to operate more along business lines and that the transport system as a whole would have to be stabilised and rationalised were exnressed by Mr. H. H. Sterling, late General Manager of the Railways Department and now chairman of the Railways Board, In a speech he made on Saturday night, at a/areweß tendered him by members of the Welling ton branch of the Railway Officers InSt Replying to the toast “Valediction,” Mr Sterling said the railways had a great tradition, but it was difficult now to live up to it. Everybody wanted something from the railways, many people wanted something to be carried for nothing. His reply was that it simply could not be done. If someone got a service for which he did not pay, then someone else had to pay for It, and that elementary truth was apt to be forgotten to-day. There were immense difficulties before the railway industry to-day that in former days were unknown. He appealed to all railway men to co-operate in fronting the position. Business Principles. Referring to remarks made earlier in the evening by the president of the N Z R. 0.1., Mr. V. J., R. Stanley, Mr. Sterling, said he did not think for a moment that the Railways Board wanted to be arbitrary to the men who constituted the railway service. There were certain business practices, in almost universal application, that were not applied In the railway service. That was largely because the service had not been of a type that could be judged by business standards, although the public generally had been Inclined to overlook the fact.. It might be, In the future, that the service would be run more in conformity with business principles, but there were cross currents at present, currents that had to be recognised, which prevented It for the time being

The board was entirely sympathetic toward the staff, and it had come into business In much the same way as a board of directors would come In. The board, he thought, had been a little misunderstood, largely due to an unfortunate development for which no one was to blame. “But I know of my own personal knowledge that there is nothing further from the.minds of the Railways Board than the Idea of being arbitrary to the staff,” Mr. Sterling said. “I know it will give the staff every consideration, and as far as I am concerned I will hold the scales as justly as my ability and capacity will permit.” Present Railway System.

The railways were still facing very great difficulties, Mr. Sterling went on. Perhaps the greatest was the system under which they operated. There was a tendency to judge the railways according to business standards, but the fact was that the railways had not been allowed to work to business standards. That difficulty now was partly overcome in the conferring of the Minister’s powers to the board. The railways would have to operate more along business lines. The questions that required consideration to-day were far different from those which had arisen In the past, and possibly the biggest question of all was whether the organisation to-day was adequate. Important Industry.

It was wonderful to him, Mr. Sterling said, that the organisation had adapted itself so rapidly to the present kaleidoscopic conditions. He had tried to bring it home to the people of New Zealand that transport was one of the biggest industries the country had, and it could not afford to postpone bringing that industry to the proper degree of stabilisation and rationalisation. The present conditions were unsatisfactory, uneconomic; they could not possibly be permanent. The sooner the necessary changes were made the better it would be for the country. Undoubtedly the first change would have to be an internal one, to bring stabilisation to the industry and everyone in it. But from the wider aspect, considering the transport Industry as a whole ,it was apparent that many conflicting forces were involved, and he thought some judicial machinery would have to be set up to deal with them—to deal with them in sbmething of the same way as legal disputes were dealt with and settled. That was something provided in the Transport Act, passed during the last session of Parliament; while he did not think that Act was by any means perfect, at least it set up the machinery to enable a start to be made in the rationalisation of the transport industry. Economies Effected. Speaking of economies effected in the railways, Mr. Sterling said that last year expenditure had been decreased by nearly half a million. This year, he thought, it would decrease by a little over a million. Those were very creditable figures, but he was sure they could not have been attained had it not been for the whole-hearted cooperation of everyone in the railway service.