MONDAY, MARCH 27. THE RAILWAYS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 27 March 1922, Page 4

MONDAY, MARCH 27. THE RAILWAYS.

The promise made by the Hon. C. ±f. Uuthne at Hastings that it is intended to ?emove the present anomalies in freights on the railways encourages tht» hope that some definite move is to b» made to put the great State service on a proper businesslike footing. Then* are so many matters connected with the railways needing reorganisation anil new -methods that the Minister must have difficulty in deciding where to begin the task. But so long as he makes a real beginning and removes some of the causes of complaint the people will no doubt be more inclined to wait patiently for full reforms, which are long overdue. We think that the whole trouble lies in the lack of businesslike action and the absurd "red tape:' methods By which the railways have been handled; and we have in mind the iniquitous system by which demurrage charges are made. Under the present regulations a trading firm in a country town like Hawera may „ have several hundred tons of goods brought to their destination in a day. It may be, and often is, absolutely impossible to secure sufficient means of transporting these goods from the railway yards before fche time limit of .the demurrage regulations is reached, and the result is that .&§ goods are saddled with charges that are absolufely unfair and uiireasijjiable. These cases are not infrequent, and one can well imagine the feelings of traders who, having done their utmost to obey the railway regulations, find that they have been set an impossible task and I have to pay for their inability to' remove their goods within tEe time limit. We feel that too strong a protest cannot be made against this injustice. If goods are brought to a station and no reasonable effort is made by those to whom they are consigned to remove them, then, by all means, let the Kailway Department charge demurrage, but when the consignee is doing his utmost to remove consignments as quickly as possible it is outrageous to penalise him for his failure to get the work done within the time limit. We hope that the strongest representations will be made to have ihe injustice removed, for the trader who has to pay such charges cannot be expected to refrain from passing on the expense to the consumer". We Relieve that the railway j freights and fares are altogether too high, and the falling off of passenger traffic is no doubt due to a large extent to the high fares. The Government raised fares in order to increase the revenue, but, as in every case, high prices ultimately kill their object. When the British railway companies . were handed back the lines, after the Government had operated them with poor success, the first thing they did was to reduce fares and freights, and the result has been a great improvement in trade. Tears ago the Glasgow tramways were made a wonderful commercial success by the introduction of the lowest fares, and we believe that th<» great art of transport trading is to build up a maximum volume of traffic."by cheap fares and freights, at the same time taking care that expenses are kept in a proper relationship to revenue. The railways must be made to pay, but that will be but poorly effected by cutting down the services or by retrenchment. Let the services be put on a proper business footing and be run on a system which will encourage a large volume of traffic, both of goods and passengers, at reasonable rates, and we believe that the result will be that the railways will pay handsomely. They will never be a success while they remain so unpopular and while people feel that they are sufferinsc injustices and anomalies j which have existed for so long