MR. G. W. RUSSELL, CHAIRMAN RAILWAYS COMMITTEE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9628, 28 September 1894, Page 3

MR. G. W. RUSSELL, CHAIRMAN RAILWAYS COMMITTEE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I have before me the Hansard report of the debate in the House on the 29th ult. on Mr. Pirani's motion in favour of trying the stage system of railway administration. I do not propose to weary you or your readers by following this debate, but with your permission will make a few remarks on the statements that fell from Mr. G. W. Russell, the Chairman of the Railway Committee. This gentleman is well known in Auckland, more particularly in the Waikato, where he resided for some years, and owned and edited te Waikato News. He attended many of my meetings, had frequent conversations with me, and fully discussed my proposals in all their various forms. There are few men who have had better opportunities of knowing what my demands really are. _ It will be remembered that in 1887 he contested with Mr. J. B. Whyte the Waikato seat, and that he based his chief claim on the electors on the fact that he professed to be a whole-hearted supporter of my scheme, while Mr. Whyte was not. In the House Mr. Russell commenced his speech by drawing attention to the rating clauses tacked on to the report of 1886 by Mr. J. B. Whyte. When in the Waikato no one denounced these clauses more loudly than Mr. G. W. Russell did. He now thinks that they ought to be enforced. Mr. Russell next makes the statement, " It would be an almost unheard of thing that the whole management of a large section of railways should be handed over to a gentleman who had only studied railway mntters theoretically, and who presumably knew nothing about railways from a practical administrative point of view." Is it possible that the chairman of the Railways Committee does not know after all that has been said on the subject, that neither Mr. McKerrow nor Mr. J. P. Maxwell had one day's previous training in railway management before they were appointed to control the whole of our railways ? He next states that Mr. Vaile has Maid down as one condition that he must have the whole of the management of the line in which his system was to be tried." _ Everyone knows that I have never made this demand, and Mr. Russell had, or oupht to have had, before him my written statement asking that the trial might be carried out under the joint supervision of the Minister, the Chief Commissioner and myself. " , Mr. Russell then goes into an elaborate talk, for on his part it is mere windy, igae-

rant talk, about goods tf'affic; saysnj "would like to point out that Mij-Ylkle kid never seriously proposed in -dotal to apply > his system •to goods traffic. . . _ • Mr. Vaile had always failed to deal with that aspect of the question," etc. This from u man who has repeatedly heard me from the platform explain how I would apply the system to goods traffic, who has had repeated conversations with me on the subject, and who has read .my pamphlets; 7000, of which I have issued, and in all of which it is dealt with. In addition to this I have described it in many thousands of leaflets, and from the platform in every large city and many small townsjn the colony. If I am correctly informed Mr. G. W. Russell has been trading on ray work. I hear that he has issued a pamphlethe has been wise enough not to send one to me, or to any of my friends—in which he has appropriated as his own my ideas in regard to goods traffic so far as they have been revealed. Well, perhaps I can afford to spare him an idea or two. He appears to stand in need of

them. This is what Mr. Russell himself said on this subject in a leader in his own paper on July 25, 1887 :—"lt is a quite a mistake to say, as is industriously circulated, that this system applies enly to fares." He then quotes from my letter to the chairman of the Railway Committee of 1886, and adds — " That quotation disposes absolutely of the statement so often made, that the Vaile system is one for fares only. All the advantages for fares would be available under it for freights, but, like a wise man, Mr. Vaile has always declined, in the absence of data, to fix the amount of the goods rates under his system." How will Mr. Russell reconcile this with his statement in the

House ? I am quite as well aware as Mr. Russell is that to advocate trying the new system first on goods traffic would be exceedingly popular, especially in the country, and I have been frequently urged to adopt this course. I however understand the subject too well: none but a fool or a rogue would attempt to arrange the classification or to fix prices for the transit of goods on any information obtainable by the general public, and I am quite certain that the Department would not furnish it either to Mr. Russell, to myself, or to anybody else. The experience gained in Hungary shows that I have been right in this contention also. There they have found it necessary to deal with passenger traffic first, in order to avoid serious loss of revenue.

Mr. Russell says the stage system is less popular in Auckland now than it was a few years ago. We will show him all about thai this time next year. If I have dealt somewhat roughly with the Chairman of the Railways Committee H is because I feel that it is intolerable

that men should accept important public positions and discharge their duties in such a manner. We have a right to expect that they will at least abstain from absolute misrepresentation of facts.—l am, etc., Samuel Vaile. Auckland, September 22, 1894.