THE Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING, Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, 3rd OCTOBER, 1891.

Southland Times, Issue 13030, 3 October 1894, Page 2

THE Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING, Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, 3rd OCTOBER, 1891.

Railway administration in New Zealand no matter under what chiefs and in pursuance of what avowed policy—has from the first been full of eccentricities and anomalies. It is difficult to account for these aberration?, for there is little in the service itself that should distinguish it from that of any ordinary business. The railway people are simply public carriers of passengers and goods, and their objects are similar to those of all other carriers, excepting that a degree of liberality is expected of them, seeing that they are serving not private but public interests, and that a public good ought often to count for revenue. When it is a mere question of profitable trade, their methods should in no way differ from those of men in ordinary business ; and their desire to meet the convenience of their customers should be enhanced rather than diminished by the consideration that their customers are their employers. Yet those who have studied the question of railway management will be constrained to affirm that in regard to the first point—the best method of securing revenue—there have been stupidities, and perversions, and neglect of opportunities that the ordinary business mind can only marvel at and deplore. Distinctions of tariff are ordained which have not the show of a basis in commercial necessity or common sense. When a concession is made or pretended to be made that would give encouragement to the public to fill those huge carriages that go lumbering empty along our lines almost every day of the year, the authorities seem smitten with dismay at their own temerity, and make haste to interpose a condition that renders the concession next to useless. What they pretend to give away with the right hand, they proceed immediately to take back with the left. They offer cheap tickets, but the holder must consume them in a given time ; as if, except in the eye of an official swathed and obscured by the red tape of a department, there could be any difference, in the service which is paid for being rendered within one month or six 1 When you ask the reason for these ridiculous and unbusinesslike restrictions, you are told perhaps that some wretched convenience in making up returns, dictates a limitation of time that in many cases makes the gift valueless and deprives the department of the revenue it pretends to be seeking. With regard to the amenities of the service, where there is so much of courtesy and consideration it is necessary to be guarded in censure. But it remains quite true that there are regula lions and impositions which it is difficult to ascribe to anything but a desire to thwart and embarrass those who cannot escape from using the rails, and which warrant tbe saying that the favourite attitude of the railway management is one of hostility to the public. This is no place for psychological enquiry, and we refrain from asking what it is that so often transforms the ordinary citizen into a small tyrant whenever be becomes invested with executive authority ; but that tbe disposition to snub the public is manifested in a special degree in some railway practices and regulations is not likely to be denied. Perhaps in nothing does the inconsistency of railway management more glaringly appear than in the different treatment accorded to different localities in the colony.

Some towns and districts are petted, while others are passed over without the slightest ceremony when favours are going. To judge from certain railway methods, it might be inferred that the desire to travel incited men and women in one direction only, and that while there was, in our smaller, a centripetal, there was, in our larger centres, no centrifugal force. It is in fact a conspicuous instance of this false distinction that has led us to reflect on the ways of the Commissioners and the general working of the railway mind. Our readers know tha‘, in anticipation of the great band contest to be held this month in Invercargi'l, the railway authorities were applied to for a special concession in the matter of fares between this town and Dunedin. The request was most reasonable in view of tbe occasion and of the principle so often acknowledged in the railway arrangements for like events elsewhere. It is necessary only to call to mind the innumerable—some constantly recurring —opportunities of cheap travelling that are given from the south to Dunedin and other of the more northern towns. Not very long ago, on the occasion of the visit of tbe ss. Gothic to Port Chalmers and Dr Talmage to Dunedin, the fares were reduced to 15s for the first class and 10s for the second ; and although the season of tbe year was not favourable so large a concession induced numbers to make the journey. But it seems to be one thing in the eyes of the Commissioners to draw a crowd to Dunedin and Port Chalmers and another to attract one from these places to Invercargill. We say nothing against the first project,hot surely tbe second should have even superior claims. The Band Contest has a colonial character, and must be exciting the deepest interest over a very wide area. We cannot conceive a more legitimate occasion for the exercise of railway liberality, or one is which this would be more readily responded to. It is with great concern that we hear of the refusal of the Commissioners to grant the request of the local commi tao for a large reduction of fares, and we think there should be some strong expression of public opinion on the subject. Not only would it be unfair to deny to those anxious to witness the contest an opportunity of doing so at little expense, but numbers are necessary to secure success and the town should not bo deprived of the chance of adding to its revenues—a chance that entered into tbe financial calculations when the scheme of entertainment was set on foot. We trust it is not too late to look for a revocation of the decision of tbe Commissioners, one that, if persisted in, will be widely and strenuously resented.