South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, DEC. 19, 1879.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2104, 19 December 1879, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, DEC. 19, 1879.

How not to do it, appears to be the study of certain Government departments. The railway department seems to be conspicuously addicted to this kind of innocent mental recreation. It has reduced the “Not-do-it” policy to a system, and no amount of argument or prompting has any effect. The most remarkable feature in connection with this department is that although it is in the pay of the public, the paymaster is the servant, and the employee is practically the master. This may seem an anomaly, but the department, like other branches of the public service, bristles with anomalies. Having had everything its own way, the department has developed a sort of mulish disposition, and when the public whip or spurs arc applied, instead of applying its shoulder to the diflicnlty, it merely kicks the traces and makes matters worse. That there is not only room for reform, but an absolute and pressing necessity for railway departmental regeneration, has long been evident to railway travellers. There is scared} 1- a passenger train that travels along the main trunk line of this island that is not an exemplification of astounding folly and alarming mismanagement. The goods traffic is ample—in fact the trucks and appliances arc generally insufficient for the traffic —but the passenger traffic is relatively a delusion. The people of Christchurch, Timaru, Oamaru, Dunedin, and Invercargill arc in the extraordinary position of having constructed at great cost a handsome bridge for their merchandise, while the gates arc locked by a heavy tariff against themselves. The spectacle of passcngcrlcss trains, carriages, and rolling stock wearing themselves out doing next to nothing is supremely ridiculous, yet this is what the public witness every day. ( f course were the public railways private property the cause of all this would be promptly investigated. The requirements of the public would be consulted, not ignored, and the proprietors of the rolling stock would see that their apartments were patronised properly or else got rid of. The dragging of wheels and glazed boxes full of emptiness, would be immediate!}' discontinued. An effort would be made to induce the public to travel, and if it failed —if they stubbornly refused to be carried about at the rear of the iron horse —then the animal would bestabled. But arc the public opposed to travelling? We think not. The spectacle, daily encountered, of men undertaking long weary jouvnics! with swags on their backs, and families and their furniture riding in a heap, shows (hat travelling in this colony is not simply a luxury, but is frequently a necessity. Tor working men with but moderate moans, the railways are an eyesore and a mockery. The tariff imposed is simply prohibitive. The artizan out of employment in Dunedin cannot afford to risk a fare of £3 for the chance of getting a few weeks labor in Christchurch, or vice versa. In the same way the country is bereft of a fair distribution of the labor of which it stands in need. Contractor suffer through not being able to travel their mCn about or take advantage of distant labour markets ; and farmers and others in the country have the greatest difficulty in securing the surplus labour that hangs so tenaciously about the centres of population when that labour is really needed. The absence of cheap travelling facilities is thus a serious drawback to the labourer and his employer, involving loss of time and physical suffering to one, and loss of money to the other. Fair provision is made on our railways for the cheap conveyance of everything but the intellectual animal. Sheep and cattle are rolled to distant markets in truckloads for a merely nominal fare, but the intelligent labourer, who is unable to pay at the rate of five shillings an hour for his ride on the Government slow-coach, must be content to swag it. Not only are the railways of little or no service to working men seeking employment, but the objectionably high passenger tariff places this mode of communication beyond the reach of their wives and families. How rarely do friends or relatives undertake a few hours journey by rail for the purpose of visiting each other! The use of the railway as a promoter of social intercourse is confined to a select few with ample means. Commercial travellers, strolling players, and others whose business venders travelling indispensable, are about the most regular patrons that the New Zealand railways enjoy. Has it ever occurred to the department that the passenger branch by an adjustment of the fares to the means of the general community, might bo rendered far more profitable than it is at present ? Or is it their confirmed opinion that the people of New Zealand were made for the railways, and not the railways for the people ? As matters stand, the people are severely taxed for maintaining a lot of travelling show cases which they are debarred from using. There are other anomalies besides the passenger system connected with this department to which we will have occasion to allude.

but in the meantime we think we - have said enough to convince any colonist who chooses to enquire for himself and use the faculties of observation which Providence has given him, in doing so, that the railway department is flagrantly mismanaged; and that its prohibitive passenger fares are a gross insult to the masses, at whose expense railways arc made and maintained.