PASSIVE RESISTANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13938, 21 December 1908, Page 7

PASSIVE RESISTANCE.

THE OHAKUNE TROUBLE. PASSENGERS SLEEP IN THE TRAIN. • THE REGULATIONS DEFIED. Thk absence of suitable halfway accommodation on the Main Trunk railway journey from Wellington continues to cause serious concern. Passengers who reached Auckland on Saturday evening referred to the experience at Ohakune as a veritable nightmare. Their story was also tinged with a spice of humour, revealing as it did a triumph of passive resistance over official red-tape ism. The total inadequacy of the existing arrangements was referred to in the Herald last week, when it was remarked that the train officials adhered to a cast-iron rule of turning all passengers from the carriages like so many belated sheep, despite the fact that neither bed nor board is obtainable nearer the station than the bush township of Ohakune, two miles off. However, the action adopted by a section of those on board the crowded train which drew into the Ohakune station on Friday night, an hour behind time, caused a reversal of at least one of the regulations hitherto enforced. Early in the first. clay's travelling passengers became informed of the fact that certain telegrams had failed to secure accommodation at Ohakune, with the result that when the stopping station was reached, some 30 occupants of various compartments revolted against leaving on the hare chance of securing beds. Overcoats and rugs, with bags for pillows, were spread, while half a dozen conveyances were being filled by the remaining passengers, who decided to face the bush road ride. Guards and railway officials sternly forbade the threatened action of sleeping in, but. resolutions were not to be easily shaken, and to make a long story short, the resistors—male and female— a restless night on the carriage seats. Their discomfiture, however, was to some extent softened on hearing the distressing tales of fellow passengers, who had paid dearly for unsatisfactory lodgings at Ohakune. Stretchers had been made use of in all manner of places, even to bathrooms, and the hours of rest had extended only from 11 p.m. to four a.m. at most. " There is surely a screw loose somewhere." remarked a veteran traveller, after reaching Auckland. " This is one of the finest trips for grandeur of scenery that I have experienced, but the Ohakune muddle ran only be described as beastly." It was learned from railway officials that a house of accommodation is to be built in the course of two or three weeks near the station, but in the meantime, holiday traffic is in full swing and apparently travellers must continue to take pot luck. In speaking to a Herald reporter last evening the Prime Minister (Sir Joseph Ward) stated that he was inquiring into the statements made in the article in Friday's Herald, that passengers had been subjected to considerable inconvenience at Ohakune through not being permitted by the officials to remain in the railway carriages during the night whilst waiting for the coaches. He would, he said, be very much surprised if he found that any of the railway employees had acted as alleged, but if they had it would not be repeated. THE PERMANENT EXPRESS. AN EARLY START LIKELY. • On being asked last evening when the permanent express service between Auckland and Wellington was likely to be started, the Prime Minister said that it would probably be early in the Jsew Year, but a great deal depended upon the final completion of the central portion of the line. Where human life was in question, he said, the Railway Department took no risks, and therefore the permanent service, would not be commenced until the line was in thorough working order. There would be nothing in the service to complain of, except perhaps by a few confirmed grumblers, when the line was completed. The charges to be made for the use of the sleeping-cars had not yet been decided upon, though the whole of the details were now being worked out.