THE RAILWAY BOARD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9263, 17 January 1889, Page 5

THE RAILWAY BOARD.

SIR ROBERT STOUT'S OPINIONS. [BY TELEGRAPH.—OWN COKRESPOXDKNT.]

Wellington , , Wednesday. The following deliverance on tho Railway Commissioners has been mado by Sir R. Stout, in si letter to a Dunedin papor :—" I disagree entirely with your estimate of the three Commissioners appointed. Mr. Jas. McKorrow is a man of singular capacity and high character. Ido not believe we could nave imported an abler railway official than Mr. Maxwoll. He is also a man of great ability and undoubted honesty. Mr. Hsinnuy is an excellent traffic manager, also of high character, and of great commercial knowledge and suavity. If a Railway Board were to be appointed, then I do not Beo tho colony can take exception to tho Commissioners ; but I believe the appointment of Commissioners to manage our railways i 3 a retrograde step. It is antidemocratic and anti-progressive; in fact, it is a declaration that democratic institutions cannot control thoso commercial enterprises in which the set of political thought is such that the State must enter. If the Parliament onght not to control the management of our railways, ought it to control our education system or the disposal of our land? Is there a thing that can bo montionod in which it should have a voice ? This Railway Commissioner business is bad. Our Railway Board should have been a Board semi-elective, to give tho people more say in the management of our railways, not less. I know tho reply : • But what of Victoria?' Now, I assort tho railways in Victoria are not so well managed as tho railways in New Zealand."