The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. MONDAY, 10thy SEPTEMBER, 1888.

Southland Times, Issue 9962, 10 September 1888, Page 2

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. MONDAY, 10thy SEPTEMBER, 1888.

It seems that the Government are still trying, whether in earnest or not, to get a suitable Chief Commissioner of railways. The late3t news is that they have received a telegram from the AgentGeneral to the effect that though the £2500 fly with which he has been whipping the waters at Home has not yet proved a success, he is still in hopes, however faint, of hooking a decent rish. He has had lots of nibbles from the small fry, kit big ones seem, for some reason or other, to look askance at the lure. It is said that Bii' Dillon Bell's masters will not Jo anytliieg — towards the appointmer,t of the Railway board, we presume — until more definite information conies to hand. This is so far satisfactory. The danger was Test they should carry out their design of appointingiocal men, a thing which would have been utterly at variance with the whole spirit and intention of the Railways A ct. It may be said, without distortion or exaggeration, that this Act was passed for the express purposi' of getting a railway ox I erf. From somewhere outside of Kptv Zealand ; Jbr it is a very melancholy fact indeed that the colony, after some twenty years of experimenting has failed to produce a man capable of managing our railway evstem in a fairly decent manner

Discontent never rose higher than ! it did about two years ago ; and it is the merest nonsense to charge all the errors and defects of management to political influence. The country was worried into an almost frantic condition by official insolence and incapacity. It was not so much the highness or inequality of the rates that irritated the public, as the general attitude of the department, which appeared to think that the railways existed for the sake of the officials and not for that of the people at large. Increase of traffic, causing increase of trouble, was what it seemed above all things to dread. " Let us alone," it virtually exclaimed ; " leave us to our red tape and routine, and for any sake don't bother us about new sidings, or anything of that sort." And this is the kind of thing which the Government, if they are not grieviously wronged, would impose upon the colony, with, carte-blanche and irresponsible powers. It is said that the Premier would appoint the present General Manager to the Chief Oommissionership without the slightest hesitation, and that Mr (x. F. 'Kichardson, if not more of his colleagues, would not object. Fortunately (if we may credit the rumour to which, we refer, and we believe it is not far from the truth) the Minister for Public Works, who knows a great deal more about railway management than either the Premier or the Minister of Lands, is dead against such an appointment. This 13 not hard to believe. Mr Mitehelson has spoken publicly of the General Manager with something very like contempt ; and he has enough common sense and rationality of judgment to see that it would scarcely gratify the country to turn the management of which it lias so bitterly complained into an irresponsible tyranny for a term of five years, and that too at a greatly augmented cost ! It cannot be too often repeated that if a suitable railway expert cannot be procured, the Railways Act of tbe session before last ought to be looked upon as a dead letter. The Government would, in fact, be guilty of an unpardonable wrong, and of what could only be regarded as a job of the very worst description, in appointing a board of local men under the provisions of that measure. But the fact of the matter is I that a board of the kind creatod by the Act is not required, though something is to be said in favour of iocal boards of advice in a country with a configuration like that of New Zealand. But a capable manager is after all the one thing necessary ; and it has been practically admitted both by the country and the House, as the Act in question, or at least the circumstauces in which it originated, clearly enough shows," that such a manager is not to be found in the colony. The salary offered — £2500 a year — appears to some people to be far too large. "It is more" says one, " than the united incomes of our township." Another says that "it is more than three times as much as the rank and tile of our Ministers get." All this however is nothing to the purpose, if it is desirable to get a good manager, and a good manager cannot be got at a smallei ligure — not to say that Ministers are as a rule appointed without the' slightest regard to their qualifications for their respective posts, such appointments being emphatically political in both senses of the word. And how could any one expect a man accustomed to the social and political conventionalism of the colony, and paid at the lowest possible figure, to resist that political influence which is on all hands declared to be the bane of our railway management ? In this respect a properly qualified outsider would appear to be indispensable. But this matter of salary is after all too trifling to be seriously considered. We could ecarcaly pay too much for a capable manager. It would have been lucky for the colony bad it possessed such a treasure during the last ten or fifteen years even at ten times the salary now offered for si chief commissioner. There is however no necessity for being so prodigi ously generous. That the kind of head to our Eailway department which the colony wants could be obtained for L2OUO or L3OOO a year we have not the least doubt. But just before the opening of last session a very general impression prevailed that the .Railways Act was a mistake, as far, that is, as the appointment or a board is concerned, and that f resh legislation v/as desirable. It would probably be better on the whole if for the present, or until Parliament meets agaiu, the search for a chief commissioner were to prove unsuccessful. The Act was a piece of hasty legislation. Still if the Agent-General should manage to hook a really good man, his two political associates (for they would pretty certainly belong to that category) might be tolerated — supposing he could keep them under control. But all that can be said in the meantime is that the piospect looks a shade better than it did a week or two ago, though we are not yet quite out of danger of accidents or jobs.