“INSIDE RAILS.”

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20425, 2 October 1934, Page 5

“INSIDE RAILS.”

Fight Between New Dealers and Roads. STRATEGIC MANCEUVRES. (Bv PAUL MALLOX). WASHINGTON. August 29. The railroads may have' lost a lot of business, but certainly not any of j their old monkey business. 1 hev still know how to lay an inside rail on a | political curve. : I The delicate way they have been ! railing the New Deal for needed re- - j lief lately would do credit even to the • genius of an Ivy Lee. (He handles ! public relations for the best of them.) You only have to go back a couple of weeks to the time when the roads felt the} r were down to their last spike. Their executives had been tipped privatelv that New Deal Co-ordinator Eastman was out to co-ordinate them into Government ownership. They were scared stiff, afraid to move. \\ hen the Government rammed a financially impossible pension system down their throats, they only gulped a few times meekly. It was months before they accumulataed gumption enough to file suit against the Pension Act. Fear of stirring up the New Dealers 5 also delayed for months any effort to get increased freight rates. But a few i days after the pension suit was filed, the roads applied to the I.C.C. for a flat 10 per cent freight rate increase. They knew well that the I.C.C. would not give it to them. In fact, there had been leaks from the I.C.C. indicating that a majority of the commissioners are dead set against any increase ; whatsoever. The bold application in the face of that situation was, however, , only preliminary to the really striking , bit of strategy. ! Not Coincidence. It could not have boen a mere co- j ! incidence that, a few days later, the i - New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad announced that “ in common j

with other railroads ” it would have to begin firing some men because costs of operation had been going up. That gentle hint would have the same effect on the New Dealers as if a cross-tie had been dropped on President Roosevelt’s foot. It simply meant: “No increased rates; no work.” The general supposition among those in the know is that the roads lately have found out that Government ownership is no longer a live possibility. Where they found it out. no one knows. Perhaps they read Professor Moley’s magazine, “ To-day.” If they do, they saw a very pointed editorial in it about ten days ago. This editorial, by Mr Roosevelt’s best adviser, said that the New Deal had not done right by the railroads; that there should be less talk of Government ownership; that the Pension Act was too hastily conceived: that a helping hand should now be lent. Simultaneously, the boys at the political switches here began to hear rumours that Mr Eastman might resign. These rumours are not accredited, chiefly because Mr Eastman knows more about the railroads than the railroads do. and the New Deal cannot afford to let him go. Nevertheless, it all dovetails into the main hidden point that a change in policy toward the railroads is at hand. That change is being *forced by as beautiful a series of manoeuvres on the part of the railroads as any publicit v man would ever hope to see. The change probably will not include increased freight rates, but it will include a reorganisation of the pension system to provide ways for financing it; also, legislation at the next session to regulate highway and waterway competition.—N.A.N.A., Copyright.