TIME FOR A SHOW-DOWN

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 74, 25 September 1945, Page 6

TIME FOR A SHOW-DOWN

A long-suffering public will agree fully with the General Manager of the New Zealand Railways when he says it is about time someone told the facts about the Dominion's coal position. For months and months the Minister of' Mines, now absent from the Dominion on a Government mission, with some i official support from the Mines Department, has been expressing the greatest optimism about future coal prospects, and has left the impression in the public mind that there is really nothing to worry about. Whenever there has been criticism, Mr. Webb has endeavoured to counter it by talking of new records in production and of the glowing prospects of open-cast mining. Just before leaving for Paris, the Minister was in one of his most optimistic moods, and ventured to predict that before long the public would be able to look back on the inconveniences they have had to suffer as a bad dream. "Every day and in every way," he said, in effect, "things are getting better and better." Now Mr. Sawers, whose job it is to give the people who own the railways the most efficient service possible, has decided that it is time to let the people know just how serious the position is. and he has done so with a frankness that will be appreciated. "In the last financial year," he said, "we used 93,000 tons more coal than we did in 1939 to run 900,000 fewer miles." And, with an appropriateness that will not

be overlooked, he added: "You can think that over, and lift your hats to it if you want to." The Department, said the General Manager, at present had only 7500 tons of coal in reserve for the whole of the Dominion. That was less than four days' supply, and one day a week ago the stock amounted to only 5600 tons. Moreover, speaking of the quality of the present-day coal. Mr. Sawers said the consumption had increased from 641b to 801b an engine mile.

There will be the fullest sympathy for the General Manager and the Railways Department when, after reciting these and other equally disturbing facts about future supply prospects, he declared: "We want to give the public the service, but we cannot do it. I am not talking about bar harbour trouble, either." When the head of an important public service speaks with such frankness, a frankness supported by a full knowledge of the facts, it is plainly time for the Government, whose responsibility in the matter is clear, to be equally frank. The holiday period is rapidly approaching, and the public are entitled to know what the prospects are of their being given the service to which they are entitled. If they are as unpromising as Mr. Sawers suggests—and who is in a betterposition to know than the head of the Railways Department?—then there should be no more beating about the bush and no more foolish optimism. Not only that, but the public have every right to know what the Government intends to do to bring about a rapid improvement in the coal position, not only as it affects the railways, but as it affects industrial and domestic supplies. Domestic consumers are entitled to know when they will be able to buy coal that will really burn. The disturbing disclosures by Mr. Sawers, made from a sense of duty to the public, cannot be left where they are, or where the Acting Minister of Mines has endeavoured to leave them. The time has arrived for a show-down; in fact, it is long overdue.