PRIVILEGED PASSENGERS.

Evening Star, Issue 12871, 21 July 1906, Page 11

PRIVILEGED PASSENGERS.

Colonial legislators are what are vulgarly termed “dead-heads” on the railways. In Britain the railways are not like ours, State-owned. Lords and Commons, besides receiving no monetary recompense for their legislative services (unless, of course, they are Ministers) have to bear their own travelling expnses. Following on'the proposal to pay members of the British Parliament a salary has come another in regard to their railway and steamer fares. This new demand of Radicalism has apparently stirred the Conservative mind at Home quite as much as the other. In a Business Note, entitled ‘Free Facilities for M.P.s,’ the London ‘ Economist ’ of May 26 has the following ;—“A Bill introduced into the House of Commons this week by Mr Crooks proposes to compel all railway companies and all steamship companies in the United Kingdom to afford, free of charge, facilities to all members of both Houses of Parliament to travel between their usual place .of residence and London for the discharge of their parliamentary duties. As legislators necessarily wear out a certain amount of shoe leather when they walk down to Westminster, it is to bo presumed that the next proposal will be to compel shoemakers to supply them with free boots and shoes—a proposal that would not be" 3' whit more extravagant than a , legislative project which seeks to render it obligatory on the proprietors of railways to bear their travelling expenses. It may, of course, be argued that railways, unlike other traders, are the holders of public franchises. But these franchises were granted under well-defined conditions, which are not to be altered at the mere caprice of legislators. The Bill is hacked, among others, by Mr Rothschild, Sir Christopher Furness, Sir John Brunner, and Sir Edward Sassoon, and the idea of railway companies being required by law to give these gentlemen free tickets is more in keeping with the traditions of comic opera than with the dignity of public life. It is to be noted, moreover, that peers are,' under the Bill, to share in the joys of free passes, so that the number of legislative ‘dead-heads’ created if the measure became law would he considerably more than a thousand. This idea of mulcting railway and steamship proprietors on a wholesale scale is so, preposterous that it is scarcely conceivable that it should be seriously supported by men who themselves are largely interested in the administration of joint stock enterprises, and arc called upon to act as the trustees of persons who have invested their money in these concerns.” In New Zealand more than any other colony a comparison with the 01(1 Country in this respect can he instituted. Certainly we have no lords to legislate for us, and our Houses of Parliament contain no financial magnates like the Rothschilds. But there is one important railway which is owned by a private company. and South Island members have to travel by the ferry sendee between Wellington and Lyttelton, while many North Island members utilise that between Onehunga and New Plvmouth. They receive better treatment than the English M.P.s.

The Manawatu Railway Company allow members to travel free over their line during the session, while the country gets concessions for members who have to cross the water to get to Wellington. No' compulsion, i however, is brought to beari on private railway or steamshin. companies; such as is proposed in the Bill introduced by Mr Crooks.