The Waipa Post. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1914. THE HOLIDAY SEASON.

Waipa Post, Volume VIII, Issue 378, 29 December 1914, Page 2

The Waipa Post. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1914. THE HOLIDAY SEASON.

We in New Zealand are a wonderfully recuperative and pleasure-loving people. Notwithstanding the fact that our Empire is involved'in the greatest war, and that alleged stringency has slightly reduced the spending power of the people during the last month or so, the pleasure resorts are all taxed to their utmost, and almost every one is on pleasure bent during this festive season. Careworn men from the cities are flocking into the country, and the cities are being filled with the residents from the rural districts. Everybody is on the move, and steam boats and railway trains —or such of them as are available to excursionists—are packed with holiday jaunters. Every reasonable means of transit is requisitioned, and every member of the community has entered into the holiday season with a fervor that denotes a pleasure-loving people. Every one is excited and happy with, perhaps, the exception of the railway servants. This army of perspiring and anxious men are having an unfortunate “holiday ” just now. Generally speaking the anxiety of the average rank and file railway official to make the best of a bad job is most apparent. But ,what far surpasses his endeavours is the completeness of the bungle and the failure of the system to adequately cope with the traffic. Management seems a thing unknown. Trains run according to circumstance rather than to arrangement, and the result is, bewildered officials and a much more bewildered public. Excursion trains are packed and excursionists suffer consequent inconvenience, whilst double the number of trains to which KingCountry excursionists are forbidden run practically empty. It is a sorry sight, and one not without a tinge of humour.

The time-table is a wretched confusion and has apparently been arranged without the slightest thought for the possible needs of excursionists. At Te Awamutu—and save on three days in the week —there is no northbound train' for fourteen hours after midday, and at a time when excursionists would find benefit from the service. After 2 a.m. four trains pass to the north at hourly intervals. The southbound service is practically the same. Of thirteen or fourteen trains only four are available to excursionists, and the running 0! every one of these four necessitate the loss of one or two days holiday in travel. Under such conditions the working man, whose holiday at best is of brief duration, has a pleasant timeon the train. \ The alteration of the time-table and the non-stoppage of the mail trains carried the general confusion beyond the sphere of the railways and all mails for this district are disorganised. Against this no public protest could be too strong, and it is a matter for surprise that the postal authorities, whose management is usually designed to meet any legitimate requirements, permitted railway upset to interfere with the mails. We feel sure that only one complaint from the local authority to the postal authorities will be sufficient to prevent a recurrence of this confusion of mail matters next holiday season. What the earlier closing of the mail has cost local business men would be hard to gauge. It has already cost the postal department a fair sum in re-arranging for the transport of inland mails.

Behind all this confusion and upset is the railway management, or rather what is called management. That the people have no representation through Minister Herries is very generally recognised, and many ardent Re-

formers in this hope for the time when State Department wilmhave a Ministerial head in otlgr than name. After having w<||Ss the officials, which he d M wifi much promise of later amraetter things, Mr Herries has fallen into oblivion. As to the personnel of the Department head we are left wondering. The general manager, at a salary equal to that paid the controlling engineer for the cutting of the immense Panama Canal, is, according to the official classification list, a nonentity and one not worthy of mention. So far as the working of the s i stem goes he seems to have made no effort to meet the demands or to remedy the general upset that is inevitably experienced at holiday time. It would not be very difficult to locate the cause of the trouble, the official or officials who satisfy their whims first and consider the country second. Mr Herries, and Mr Hiley, too, know exactly what and where the trouble rests, but apparently neither of them care or trouble to exert their authority. In the meantime the country looks on and growls. The country will act, and it has recently given an indication of how it will act unless Mr Herries recognises that the legitimate claims of a district are first, and official whims second. Mr Meyers recognised this and acted, and the country appreciated the temporary freedom from officialism, and the country may very, very soon show a marked desire for Mr Myers’return. This district has every possible reason to do its utmost to that end.