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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9188, 18 October 1888, Page 5

Railway management has many phases, and it may be instructive to look at one, which has brought out the results of the running of the Victorian system this year, very much on the wrong side of the ledger. To the railway management of Victoria Ave have, all been eagerly looking for a year or two past. The previous management in Victoria under a Minister and department was not a success, and it was determined to try a Railway Board, with at its head a (man of European reputation as a railway expert. Mr. Speight was obtained at a salary of £5000, and was placed at the head of the Board, with full powers. He was fortunate in the time at which lie took office, for just then began the revival in the trade of Victoria, which has lasted till now, when it has become a boom." For two years Mr. Speight showed results which, contrasted with former experience, were almost dazzling in the promise of indefinite expansion of profit to the State from owning the railways. We were pretty well sick of our own fashion of doing things, and in our despair we caught at the idea of a •Board, and determined to give it a trial, and not seriously to look at the scheme proposed by Mr. Vaile till the Board management had been fully tested. It is known to all how we have endeavoured to get a man from England, ami how we have failed up till now ; how we are still imploring for some railway expert to come and take charge of us for £3000 a-year, and how nobody will condescend 'to accept, the sa.ary. At present we have the vacillating control of that emphemeral creature a [Minister. We crave for a despot, who shall be amenable to no influences of a political kind, who cannot be removed from office, and whose will is to be law. But in the midst of our enthusiasm for a Board, it gives us a cold chill to find that the Victorian official records for the past year show that the railways made a net loss of £53,000, instead of a profit, of £40,000, as in the previous year. The main, or we might say the sole, cause why the lines show a loss is that the Government have had to pay as compensation on account of accidents the sum of £14-.51)i2. It may be said that this is a heavy item exceedingly unlikely to recur, but we are not quite so sure about that. It is an incident of the Board management at all events, and shows on what a very risky foundation the profitable working of the Victorian railways, about which we have been hearing so much, rests.