OUR RAILWAYS AND "NIL DESPERANDUM."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8879, 16 May 1892, Page 3

OUR RAILWAYS AND "NIL DESPERANDUM."

TO TIIE EDITOR. . Sir, have not much respect for anonymous correspondents, nor do I intend to waste much time on them. The advocates of selling our railways generally shelter themselves under a nom de plume. Why ?Is it not because, if their names were known, they would in the great majority of cases be recognised as men who are eagerly anxious to create a boom, realise their assets, and clear out of the colony. Those of the party who are sincere in their advocacy of private ownership of railways— and I know there are some—are men who have never really studied the question, but who draw their inspiration, from such sources as the Railway News, Bradstreets, and_ other organs of the great railway companies and great capitalists, who naturally wish to retain the existing order of things. It was the Railway News that started the untruth regarding the Hungarian system, which our Railway Commissioners so eagerly fathered. If these gentlemen, instead of relying on statements made by papers like these, would study the statistics of those countries where the railways are owned partly privately and partly by the State they would find that in almost every instance the advantage is greatly on the side of State ownership. "Nil JDesperandmn" draws a very rosy picture of what would happen if we sold our railways. _ May I ask how it is that this state of things has not arisen in those countries where the railways have "been in the hands of the capitalists for the last fifty years ? " Nil Desperaiulum" says that my letter of 7th "is proof evident that the sooner the country takes up the cry, ' Sell the railways ' the better it will be for all. concerned." I submit that my letter proves nothing of the kind; but what it proves is this ; That we made an inconceivably stupid blunder in removing our railways from Parliamentary control, and giving the away to men who had proved themselves utterly incompetent to manage them, and T, v ho appear determined to resort to the most unscrupulous methods to maintain themselves in power. Our real remedy lies not .in selling our railways, but in reducing railway administration to a system as simple as the postal system, and by removing them in reality, and'not in name only, free from political influence, white at the same time Parliament may retain its control over them. I have shown how this can be done to the satisfaction of thinking men outside of New Zealand, if not in it. Last Tuesday I received a letter from Mr. R. A. Cooper, one of the leaders of the English railway reform movement. He believes that my system would " revolutionise the ways of modern life." I will givo a few extracts from his letter in a few days. If we keep our railways under Parliamentary control, it is our own fault if we suffer ; the remedy is in our own hands if we have the courage to use it.. Sell them, and we are powerless.-—I am, c'cc., Samuel Vaile. Auckland, May 12, 1892.