RAILWAY BOOK-KEEPING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18325, 15 February 1923, Page 8

RAILWAY BOOK-KEEPING.

WONDERS OP THE SYSTEM. ' "Systernaniac" writes:—The many strictures and criticisms that have lately appeared in your columns anent the general arrangements and management of the Government railways may be entirely warranted, and there is, without doubt, room for considerable improvement. s But we must give credit where such is merited, and I maintain that there is probably no other railway in the world which has such' an efficient and well-organised system of book-keeping. The system goes by „ the name of the double account cross entry system, , and owes its inception to some obscure genius, who probably has not yet. got, nor will ever get, his deserts. I will give an example. Having in some way purchased a wrong ticket for 2s 3d, I requested a refund, as the fault ap peared to be with the ticket-office clerk. If, seemed to my commonplace intelligence that all that was necessary for the clerk to do would be to pay me the 2s 3d, cancel the ticket, and hold same as a receipt for the transaction. But this method, I have since found, ■_ is not a satisfactory system. It was necessary to apply in ■writing for a refund, I was told. I did so, fully detailing the circumstances. At the end of three weeks I received a letter from the Auckland stationmaster requesting me to call at the office. I did so, and after being shuttle-cocked about the station for a brief half-hour and producing the letter to, many clerks, ticket officers, 'porters, engine-cleaners, lamp-trimmers, etc., I found a man sufficiently acquainted with the mysteries .of railway * management to direct me to the right office. 1 fell on his neck and shed tears. I then entered the office in triumph, and produced my precious letter to the dignified official who presided. He at once went to the top right-hand pigeon-hole on the left and extracted a bundle of papers, ■which I imagined to represent, the week's doings in the ticket refund line. But no. This collection of documents, torn and dirtied, repaired and renewed, signed and counter-signed by everyone ' from the manager down to the office boy and up again to the Minister, earmarked, noted and initialled, red and blue pencilled, covered and carefully fastened together with ■ a skewer, which in its infancy was a raildog (an example of eoonomv), all yes, I Bay all, referred to that one and solitary transaction which I have detailed above. Is this not the triumph of system *«? ve height of organisation, when this collection of many papers could go through all those hands and return to the original office within %ee-weeks ••• without one ' single paper being lost'? ': To conclude, ; I collected the 2s 3d and stumbled out of the office and spent the whole sum just around the corner in a desperate endeavour to sufficiently restore my lagging energies to enable me to return to my office. /