FORWARD POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 52, 2 March 1934, Page 9

FORWARD POLICY

DEPRESSION RESISTED

COUNTER-ATTACK. COMING

The cry was once "help the railways." It- is now "help and 'be helped," for the General Manager, Mr. G. H. Mackley, points out in his monthly message (published in the "New Zealand Eaihvays Magazine") that times are changing, and the railways staff is in a special position to advise. Once railwaymen were preoccupied with internal affairs of train-run-ning, but now the fabric of rail, road, and sea traffic is so close-knitted that the railwayman is versed in the whole. He looks outside, as well as inside, the railways system. "Our district managers,, whose -principal preoccupation iv tho pre-motor era were with the internal affairs of train-running and staff control, now cultivate (says Mr. Maekley) a more direct interest and association ■iv tho general commercial affairs of the coinmuuity. They arc qualified transport advisers for the public as well as specialists in rail transport. Indeed, so closely interwoven is now tho whole fabric of sea, road, and xail carriage through the various 'through booking' arrangements- entered into between the railways and other carriers, that control of a railway district includes the general supervision of .the principal transport operations of every sort carried on within that district. There are seven major and five minor railway districts covering the whole Dominion for transport service, and, within these, each officered station, of which there are two hundred and sixty, is a transport centre and each stationmaster, besides being tho local authority for controlling train and station operations, is the local lousiness manager for the Department and is in a position to help ami advise all those within his area who have transport needs of any kind. The public have been, reminded on many occasions that the public ownership of the railways and the public's direct financial interest in them arc good reasons for putting any transport business they may have into the hands of the-railways. Tho purpose of this message is to draw,their attention, to the fact that qualified officers of the Department are always available to advise and assist the public in their transport problems and that- consultation of this sort, apart from, any benefit which may accrue to tho Dominion's iinauees as a result of such assistance, may effect so far as the individual is concerned substantial savings in transport costs." .. In the same message the General Manager suggests that the ' defensivo tactics rendered nc-cessary by. the de; prcsslon may now give way to an order to advance. "One advantage of the improvement an the railway position is that it encourages, experimental development along many lines of Departmental activity. When business was falling and watchfulness was necessary to correspondingly reduce expenditure, so much attention had to bo devoted to tho urgent call for lower costs that experiments in methods to develop traffic where such was possible could only be made—and were • made—when the benefit was not only assured) but could be reaped immediately. It was more iiecessary to protect, what .we had—that is, to wage a defensive battle in protection of railway, business—than to test the productivity of unanalysed fields. That stage being as we allhopo more or less past, the revival of improvement in railway -methods and facilities, never stationary even, in the worst' stage of the;'depression,'1 is'-■re-ceiving fresh encouragement as the public turn more and- more to the railways as the ultimate solution of their major transport problems." In an editorial, the "Now Zealand Eailwaya Magazine," referring to the alert attitude of railway systems, generally, remarks: ,' "Reluctant though they have been to lot go the old-and tried methods—a, -conservatism, well justified in face of their record—new ways have been found to meet the wants of tho times while preserving the solid ground work-of the former system. A sober suggestion to the Amcri'can railroads that their present locomotives and. rolling: stoelv might be stream-lined to assist speed without altering seriously the general construction of the vehicles, is a typical example of this spirit."