THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1930. THE RAILWAYS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21148, 4 October 1930, Page 12

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1930. THE RAILWAYS.

The report of tlio Commission" appointed to inquire into the possibilities of increasing the revenue and decreasing the expenditure on the- railways of the Dominion is not a bright document, illuminating though it may be. The terms of reference were premonitory. The search for avenues of economy has been a somewhat thankless task. Having subjected the various phases of the service to a severely scrutinising eye, and having combed the various ramifications of expenditure with evident diligence, the commission brings down proposals for economies estimated to improve the financial position of the railways to the extent of £628,000 per annum. It is not an altogether unimpressive result, and it is one which, in the variety of items making up the aggregate, possesses its interest. Certainly an annual “saving”—using the word for want of a better—of £628,000 is far from negligible, and if that amount represented unnecessary, and therefore wasteful, expenditure which could be curtailed, it might be hailed as a highly important discovery upon which the Commission could be heartily congratulated. • But the sum by which it is suggested that the financial results of the operations of the railways can be improved, if its recommendations are adopted, is more than half made up by increased charges. Additional charges are estimated to yield £324,000, while the economies are expected .to. curtail expenditure by £294,000. Clearly, the economies, together with the possibilities in the way of ■ increased revenue, come very far short of offsetting satisfactorily Mr Forbes’s statement of three months ago on the railways position—“ The bald fact is that an, additional burden of £1,250,000, less' the sum total of any savings that may result from economies in expenditure, must this year be carried by the taxpayers.” If the Commission’s estimates are anywhere close to the mark half of that burden of a million and a-quarter may be lifted. But the expectation that the increased charges that are proposed will yield £334,000 is surely an expectation only. Past policy has included attempts to popularise the railways by encouraging passenger and freight traffic, and the results have been distinctly disappointing. It is probably not an unreasonable assumption, seeing how keen is the competition which the railways have to face, that the result of the institution of increased charges by the department will have to be measured in the balance between less patronage and increment of revenue, and that the gain to the department will not be very conspicuous. Such a matter has, of course, to be put to the test. The department frankly abandoned the idea of chasing passenger traffic that will not be caught. The curtailments recently instituted will be supplemented, if the commission's recommendations are carried into practice, in a variety of directions. There has been a great raking together of odds and ends in the hope of increasing revenue, and, trifling though the increments in the way of charges may be in many cases, some of them will certainly be very unpopular. But last year the increase in the operating costs of the railways was over half a' million pounds, which represented more than one-half of the total increase of expenditure during the past four years. How does the Commission propose to stop this disturbing drift? The answer is presumably provided in its most important recommendations, of which the possible results are not measurable in estimates of a precise kind. It expresses the very definite opinion that the general organisation of the department is not such as to produce the maximum of economy and efficiency in administration and operation, thus confirming a suspicion that has been somewhat widely entertained. Its emphatic verdict is that the railways must be run on business-like lines, and completely removed from political control. “ The position,” it says, “ calls for drastic and immediate action and the transfer of the management to persons not subject to political influence.” The finding of the Commission on this matter of control is an outstanding feature of its report. Its opinion as regards the position which obtains at present, under which the Minister, the general manager, and the Railways Appeal Board are all concerned in the exercise of authority, is that “ this has a far-reaching and prejudicial effect on the efficiency of the Department and also on the financial results obtained,” It need not be doubted that this view is wellgrounded, and that this Dominion is confronted with the choice between clinging to a system of control which precludes efficiency and falling into line with other countries in the direction indicated by the commission. Against a change of this kind arguments will no doubt be heard, but unless a determined effort is made to solve the railway problem in Now Zealand without delay it may get beyond solution. The general economic position is a factor which may not be ignored. In the course of the hearing the other day of the application of the Railway Commissioners of four of the Australian States for an order setting aside awards of the Arbitration Court the Chairman of the Victorian Railway Commissioners was asked the question, “Do you think the policy which has prevailed since railways were established in Australia should be changed?” His reply was simply, “ It is not what I think at all, but the fact that we are faced with a national necessity.”