LABOUR GRASPS THE WHEEL

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 83, 7 April 1936, Page 10

LABOUR GRASPS THE WHEEL

In abolishing the Railways Board, the Minister of Railways, Mr. Sullivan, argues that during its existence it initiated little; the General Manager framed the decisions, and the board .approved. Therefore, the board cari.be done without. This view of the case overlooks the shelter value of a non-political Railways Board. Suppose —purely for argument's sake —that the board had initiated nothing, but had turned to the General Manager ah ear that was non-political and non-partisan; would not that insulation on top, sheltering the General Manager and his executive from partisan and party pressure, give him a very necessary liberty to administer a business in a purely business way? In so far as an executive staff succeeds in its administration by virtue of the fact that there is a board acting as a buffer against sectional or political "pulls," the executive's success is also in part the board's success. Therefore, a statement, whether true or untrue, that the board did. not initiate, and that the executive did, does not necessarily accuse the board of failure. A true test, of board efficiency is to compare the years during which the General Manager of Railways has been ringing up the board, with the years during which the General Manager used to ring up the Minister. Was the business of the Department of Railways—tariffs and other practical decisions—carried out in a more businesslike way as between executive and board in a railway atmosphere, than as between executive and Minister in a political atmosphere? To say that the Railways Board was not a prime mover is to obscure the fact that the board certainly was a buffer. Railwaymen should recognise that distinction even if politicians do not. To provide such a buffer as would allow the railways executive to operate as a business executive, instead of being a political pressure gauge, was a primary purpose of the board. Has it failed? Nothing the Minister has said indicates failure.

Another test of Railways Board efficiency is coming, for there is to be a period of years when the General Manager will no longer ring up the board but . will ring up the new Minister. Will Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Mackley both be the happier for that? As against political and sectional pulls, a Railways Board is protection not only for the railways executive. It is also protection for Ministers and members of Parliament. In the past there have been members and Ministers who had not sufficient moral strength to resist a request for a branch railway, or some other railway request, not justified by economics. To these, and therefore.to, the taxpayer, a Railways Board; is some protection. But Labour, new to office, is saying: "We do not run from responsibility; authority, .and responsibility we grasp; we are strong, enough to see justice—no scroungers, no? loafers, no serving of vested interests." Well, are they strong enough? That is the untested issue, and it is the acid test. Mr. R. A. Wright said in the House of Representatives on Friday:

There is not a man in this House, and no Minister either, who can stand up against the pressure brought to bear on him to start a line as a branch line when the.party seat is involved. .The new Government may be going to set i a different example, but that is how I have seen it in the past. . . . The time will come when the Minister of Eailways, who is a young man new to his job, will look back and say that' he would have been better off if there had been some board in between him and the concern itself.

When that time comes, if it comes, prophecy will have scored a success, but prophecy contains no element of prevention, otherwise there would be no.prophets. So it is to be feared that the danger of Mr. Wright's name being found among the prophets is considerable.

Of course, it iS in the interests of New Zealand that Mr. Sullivan should prove, the superfluity of the Railways Board in the only way in which it can be proved—that is, by running the railways as a business concern in the interests of its owners and users; and by building new railways (if any) not for political purposes but only after sufficient economic investigation. But the Government enters office after an election campaign in which certain railway works—or, at any rate, the NapierGisborne line —appeared as political promises. What economic investigation did Labour carry out? Mr. Semple's "visit to the district to report" was not only a post-election event,' but he himself en route confirmed the pre-eleclion promise; So there is nothing in the Labour record to date to encourage the idea that Labour Ministers are pre-eminent resisters of pressure, or that their railway-building decisions are founded on pure economics; and the regret widely felt at the removal of

a buffer between a business department and Ministers of the Crown is untempcred by any confidence that a new age has given birlh to a new Cabinet team superior throughout in moral fibre lo its political predecessors.