THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, JULY 30, 1928. THE RAILWAY SERVICE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20473, 30 July 1928, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDA Y, JULY 30, 1928. THE RAILWAY SERVICE.

Ix seems probable that in the course of a hurried visit to Dunedin last week, the General Manager of Railways inspired the business community with a feeling of confidence in his ability to meet satisfactorily the difficulties that will be encountered by him in the position of great responsibility to which he has recently been appointed. He does not seek to disguise the gravity of these difficulties. In an address to the executive council of the Railway Officers’ Institute, in which ■he claimed, as he had a right to claim, the active co-operation of all the members of his staff in rendering “ essential service ” to the public, he observed that “ unquestionably the Railways Department, in common with railways all over the world, was up against a very serious problem.” This problem was not, and could not have been, foreseen at the time when the railway policy of the Dominion was initiated or, indeed, at the time when the construction of any of the lines of railway that are still unfinished was authorised. Otherwise it may be confidently asserted that the country would not have put out anything like fifty millions of money in the establishment of railway communications. The modern developments in methods of transport have rudely shattered any ideas that may have been entertained that the railways would prove a profitearning service. These ideas may never have entered the official mind. It was at least hoped, however, that the railways would yield a return which would be sufficient to pay the interest on the cost of their construction and to provide also for the cost of necessary renewals. Mr Sterling, speaking at a meeting of business men, asked that the railways should be regarded as paying if they gave an indispensable ■service that was worth while to the country. It was, he said, the duty of the department to give to the people, at the lowest possible cost, the transport facilities upon which their existence depends. And, just as he had claimed the co-operation of the railway staff, so also he claimed the co-operation of the business community and the entire public in the fulfilment by the department of its obligation of service. There is, perhaps, a too great tendency on the part of all the residents of the Dominion to forget that they are shareholders, as Mr Sterling described them, in the railway institution. It was not unreasonable on his part to ask them to regard the railways as a great co-operative institution, in which they have a share and a responsibility. There is no more effective, or, it might be supposed, more irresistible, form of appeal to the public than this. The railways are the public property. It is for the department, over which Mr Sterling presides, to render to the public the best practicable form of service, and it is for the public to take advantage of that service. If the public withholds support from the service and the railways are, in consequence, operated at a loss, it is upon the public itself that this loss falls. That is the plain English of the whole matter.