RAILWAY SERVANTS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 150, 25 June 1912, Page 3

RAILWAY SERVANTS

CONSIDERABLE DISSATISFACTION EXPRESSED. [BI lELEGBAPp — PEESS ASSOCIAHQN.} DUNEDIN, 24th June. Considerable dissatisfaction ib expressed by railway servants in 'regard to the classification and other conditions obtaining in the service. A general improvement of the conditions is desired^ and the removal of certain anomalies as compared with the Postal and Telegraph Department. In September last a petition was presented to Parliament by men covering all the grounds of discontent, and. this was fully enquired into by theRailways Committee of the -House, with the result' that a. report was presented favourable io £Le requests of the petition. In view of the findings of this committee, the men expected that the necessary amendments in the Regulations and Clatsification Acts would follow, and though both the Hon. J. A. Millar and the Hon A. M. Myers have been niterviewed by the men on the subject, nothing has yet been done. Prior to the interview with Mr. Myers, he was informed by his responsible officers that the annual recurring cost to the department at the end of four years would be over £95,000, but it is contended that this estimate is based on an aggregation 01 payments over a period of four years. The Officers' Institute submitted figures which showed that the very outside cosi of giving effect to the proposals wonld amount tv an annzally recurring sum of £31,860 at the end of four years. Tho Minister, however, preferred to. accept the figures of hia own officers, and would juve no satisfactory answer. Ab no steps have yet been taken iv the matter, a fertile!* petition from the Railway Officers' Institute will be placed bc-torePar-Haineni; when it meets. MASS MEETING - FEDERATION OF lABOUE, LEADERS BUS¥« fur TXtSCBATQ — I'RXSS ASSOCIATION.] AUCKLAND. 24tli June. M«ißi'B. Parry and Fraser, members of tha executive committee of the Federation of Labour, are at present in Auck3aaad > engaged in organising v/ork in connection with ihe Federation. To-morrow night delegates will address a macs meeting oi general labourers and coal miners at Whangaiei. Laier they will addressmeetings at Hikurangi. Limestone Island, and Kiripaktv. Next Sunday evening the Auckland Socialist Pa<rty will give over the O^sta Houco for the hoidixiij of &

xnafcs meeting of unionists. ii> consider the struggle upon which the Federation of Labour is now engaged. PROTECTION AT BLACK WATER MINES UNION'S '^iJECTION[BY TBLBGItAPH — PBESS ASSOCIATION.] REEFTON, 24th June. The Miners* Union objected to an application for protection by " the Blackwater Mines. Ltd.. and the Consolidated Goldfieldi>. Notice had been given by the companies that evidence was required from Waihi, consequently the case was set- down for 26th June. It will probably be postponed to 11th July. AUSTRALIAN PROGRESS ♦ . , AS SEEN BY A NEW ZEALANDER. Mr. James Mackenzie, SurveyorGeneral of New Zealand, has returned from the Conference of Surveyors-General recently held in Australia, and told a Post reporter that the delegates had' met with the greatest consideration from the authorities, and been afforded every facility, in the time at their disposal, for seeing all that was to be seen. Everywhere, too, they met with the greatest goodwill towards New Zealand—" in fact," he eaid, "some Australians think more of New Zealand than come new Zealanders do." . Mr. Mackenzie visited all the Australian capitals except Perth, and spent three days at tho site acquired for theCommonwealth capital — 45 miles from Yass, New South Wales, and a little over 100 miles, inland from Jervis Bay, which will be the capital port. The site itself he regards as an excellent one, ac far as he was able to judge. It has an elevation of about 1800 ft above sea level ; it has a sufficient eloping element to provide good drainage, and is picturesquely surrounded by wooded hills. The total area to be acquired for the site is something like 900 square mile*. There is a great diversity of opinion as to whether it is necessary to have a capital site, but that aspect of the situation is governed by the constitution, and until the constitution is amended the work has to go on. The drought wafc in full swing while the visitors were there, and everything was looking at its worst. In some disi tricts the drought was described as the worst that had occurred for twenty-five years, and the losses of 6tock were very heavy indeed* In the drought districts the ground for miles was as bare as the middle of a road. Sheep were being bold in 6ome cases at 10s a dozen, and m a, great many distr-lcte lambs were killed as soon as they were dropped, in order to save the ewes. At one station, where there was a stud flock, 60,000 cheep were being fed with |lb of grain^ per day each. Dairying is going ahead in New South 'Wales and Queensland coastal districts. Mr. Mackenzie heard of one factory, Byron Bay, where the value of the output for the season amounted t0%31,000,000 sterling. He also had the opportunity of seeing the Darling Down.** district. It has -an area of about 25,000 tquare miles, and/ to show how differently .they regard areas there to what they do in Australia, Mr. Mackenzie found that the authorities were almost annoyed because the area was not ten times *as greaL If it had been, there might have been something to be proud of. However, notwithstanding the dronght, Mr. Mackenzie found that very great activity prevails all through Australia. The inducements to land settlement in the various States he found were very liberal indeed, but in regard to the land tenures he gathered that there was a certain hick of finality. Provision was made for revaluation at short periods, for instance. Of course, that cut both ways; rentals were reduced as often as they were increased; but for his own part he would prefer to see the Land Boards the final arbiters as between the Crown and the tenant. In Australiaregular Land Courts were sat up, apparently quite independent of the boards, to settle valuations, adjustments, and grievances which in. New Zealand were dealt Y/ith anally by the board. In New Zealand a settler knew exactly the conditions under which he took up the liind ; in Australia he did not know what might happen. The Surveyor-General was greatly impressed with the irrigation works and proposals in that direction, all designed to bring into productivenees districts now almost barren by damming the river^and flooding the ' country. .He visited an enormous undertaking at Barrenjack, some forty miles from Yass. The scheme is to dam the Murrumbidgee River by means of an embankment 200 ft high, which is being built of practically solid concrete. This will dam some forty-five miles of the river, and the reservoir when completed will have an area' of about twenty -six square miles and a depth of something like 100 ft. The water is to be taken for irrigation purposes some 200 miles before it is used, and it will irrigate over a million acres of country suitable for dairying, and grain and fruit growing. This great work will cost about a million and a-half of money, and if successful, -will be an, object lesson for the whole of Australia, and probably lead to other simTlqy works being constructed. The enormity of this work, in the inspection of which the conference partly put in a day, may be gathered from the fact that the dam is some 800 ft long, 170 ft wide at the base, tapered to 18ft at the top, -containing 600,000 tons of solid material, including 50,000 tons of pure cement. In .order to minimise cost of transport of material, etc., it was found economical to construct for 25 milee a 2ft gauge railway, connecting with the Main Trunk line. -This is also fitted up with comfortable travelling carriages, and the trains have a speed of about 15 miles an hour. The 'thought flashed through ill*. Mackenzie's mind when travelling on it that it ought to be the very thing, instead of road construction, where metal k scarce, for New Zealand's baekblock districts, .and where, at most, lines can never get beyond the rank of feeders.