RAILWAY ACHIEVEMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21111, 19 February 1932, Page 8

RAILWAY ACHIEVEMENTS.

The efficacy of the new board's management of, the railways is being revealed by the sustained improvement in the financial results of railway operation. The board took over management of the department at the beginning of June. By the middle of October the drift, had been arrested and the arrears in net earnings accumulated in.the earlier part of the year had been extinguished. Every period of four weeks since October has shown a reduction in working expenses substantially greater than the decline in revenue. The result is that for 44 weeks of the year the net revenue is £91,000 better than for the corresponding period last year, and only £20,000 less than for the same 44 weeks in the year before. In the last 16 weeks the department has lteen gaining nearly £6OOO a week. There are just under nine weeks to go from the date of the last return to the end of the financial year. This period will include the Easter holiday traffic, so that it is reasonable to expect the rate of advance to continue. If it does the year will be completed with a working profit of £B3o,ooo—just £IOO,OOO less than was required by the Budget. If every estimate in it came as close to realisation as that of the contribution from the railways, if every department had reduced its expenditure so much faster than the decline in revenue as the railways under board management have done, the outlook for the end of the financial year would be much more favourable than it can be considered now, with the utmost - exercise of optimism. The railways department under the new dispensation has set a magnificent example. The results for the limited period of board control arouse keen expectation of what will be revealed when a full year of it has been completed.