FORTUNES OF WAR. Or Misfortunes of Management?

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 94, 19 April 1902, Page 8

FORTUNES OF WAR. Or Misfortunes of Management?

RAILWAY accidents at the seat of war, plentiful as they have been during the last two years, have excited but passing comment in New Zealand. The killing of men by the enemy, by disease, or by accident is received by the general public with stoicism. It is the fortune of war. When, however, the sons of this country are the victims the people naturally feel very acutely on the subject. • • • Accidents are so common on the Imperial military railways in British South Africa that it is considered hardly worth while explaining their cause in the cables. The trainload of English troops, 39 of whom were killed and many injured on April 2nd on a journey from Barberton, were sent to their death by an inexperienced driver. " The driver lost control " says the cable. Why ? Drivers on New Zealand trains or elsewhere don't lose control. Many of our grades are much steeper than anything between Barberton and Capetown. * • • May we not conclude that in the recent frightful mishap to our Eighth Contingent the "driver lost control" also 9 It is fairly safe to assume that it was so. Are the Imperial military railway authorities blameable in these increasingly numerous accidents ? Engine-drivers in Africa are recruited from all arms of the service, and are paid 2s. per day extra for the responsibility of holding the power of life or death over their comrades. It doesn't matter if they can drive, as long as they tell the authorities so. * • » If the authorities can't get aciulian driver at from £25 to £30 a month to take on risky work, then Tommy who is " down " for railway service is forced to undertake it. The result is that the railway line from Barberton to Capetown is a pretty extensive kind of graveyard. The First N.Z. Contingent and other troops on completion of their term of service were driven to Pretoria by a trooper of the 18th Hussars, whose claim to the responsibility of his position was that he had been a fireman on the " Underground " in London before he enlisted, seven years previously ! He came safely over the incline that was fateful to the troops on April 2nd, but it was more by good luck than any skill. * • * The prewous day a new " Tommy " engine-driver had crossed a ricketty deviation at full-speed, wrecking his train and killing the biggest part of a battery of artillery. Maybe it was necessary in 1900 to recruit engine-drivers from the army and certainly the Royal Engineers could not supply them all. But having been in possession of the whole Boer railway system for so long surely the authorities have had time to import competent engineers by the thousand if necessary ? Not once but many times homeward-bound troops ha\e had their joy turned to sorrow through railway accidents that could easily ha\e been avoided had the Imperial Military Railway authorities insisted on competency in drivers. * •* ♦ The mishap to the Eighth Contingent may be regarded as an incident in Africa ; in New Zealand it is rightly regarded as a shocking catastrophe. Seeing that the majority of reported accidents ha\e been caused by culpable negligence, we cannot doubt but that those poor fellows who went to fight the Empire's battles, and met their deaths on the railway, might have been spared to take a hand in the struggle for peace, but for the negligence referred to.