BRAVE WORD, IF LIVED UP TO

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 39, 16 February 1931, Page 8

BRAVE WORD, IF LIVED UP TO

"Out of evil cometh good." New Zealand had to go down into the trough of depression to discover a Government that would stand for the dc-polilicalisation of the railways. When Reform had its chance to take this step, the chance was missed; and it is much to he feared that the same thing would have had to be recorded of any other Government had the decision been made in iuarmal circumstances. But the drive of emergency has at last proved too powerful for the politician's instinctive hold upon bureaucratic power. Even if adversity had no other use, it must at least be credited with giving this new and radical angle of approach to railway policy, which in New Zealand is 50 per cent, of transport policy. We can imagine no more important result of the financial times through which the country is passing than the establishment of the railways upon a really non-political basis—for the economic crisis and its financial expedients will go as they have come, but the new control of railways has every chance to remain.. That is, assuming that the basis is really non-political. For, as everyone is well aware, there is no magic in a word or even in a formula. De-politicalisation means nothing unless it transfers authority and responsibility to non-political shoulders. A Board of Directors system may have varying results, according to the way in which it is constituted, its personnel, and its chairman. In short, the value of the United Government's proposal depends on how it is implemented. The victory in principle can still be defeated in detail.

Two things are required of Stateowned railways in Australia and in New Zealand —(1) that they shall fit into a comprehensive transport system in an economic (not political) way; (2) that they shall not wreck the Treasury and ruin the taxpayer. If the railways administration had been made non-political ten years ago, it would have been free to offer advice as to the co-ordination of rail and road transport, and such advice from a competent, non-political administration—free alike of party motive and of private profit motive —would have had to be listened to. [But, owing to its political fetters, public ownership of rail services, instead of being an aid in the great traffic crisis that has arisen"* (long preceding the financial crisis), has been a cause of confusion and delay; the strong clear voice that might have been expected from State railways has been muffled. The Government's tardy decision to give the management some freedom and elbow room has had to be delayed not only till the traffic complex (including new railway construction) had become acute- but until working railways losses had reached a point of grave danger to the whole Budgetary balance. The plight of the New Zealand railways is exceeded only by the plight of railways in Australia, where seven Governments and seven losing systems exemplify the bog into which a people can sink if transport is built up and managed on other than transport lines. The bright side of the picture is that New Zealand at any rate has but one Government, and that the very force of our misfortunes seems to have convinced that Government of the error of its (or its predecessors') ways.