RAILWAY MANAGEMENT.

Waipa Post, Volume XXI, Issue 1200, 2 February 1922, Page 5

RAILWAY MANAGEMENT.

DISCUSSION OF BILL.

BETTER FACILITIES WANTED. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. The second reading of the Government Railways Amendment Bill was moved by the Hon. D. H. Guthrie last night. Mr W. A. Veitch (Wanganui) said he would move in Committee an amendment to the clause covering agreements as to hours of work, so that in any new arrangements nothing should be done to increase the hoursi of work. This was necessary in the interests of both staff and public safety. He urged that an improvement in railway facilities at the chief centres should be undertaken without delay, thereby adding to the productive possibilities of the railways and providing work for a large number of unemployed.

Mr H. E. Holland, Leader of the Labour party, urged improvement in the accommodation on trains and the abolition of the second class. He accused the Government of neglecting the country’s own sources of coal supply by not providing proper housing for miners. If this were done the New Zealand mines would produce all the coal required, and there would be no need to go outside for supplies, which frequently were of inferior quality. The Minister, in the course of his reply, combated the argument of Mr Holland with regard to the importation of foreign coal, contending that ■for the past twenty-five years we had been importing coal for the railways. New Zealand had spent many thousiands of pounds on foreign coal, that ought to have been spent in the Dominion, but the coal miners of New Zealand had been weak enough to listen to the advice of extreme leaders. The bill was read a second time, and referrred to the Railways Committee.

NOVEL REFORM ADVOCATED

Many suggestions have been received in recent years concerning reform in railway management, but none of so sweeping a nature as that put before the Wellington Chamber of Commerce recently. Mr A. E. Mander, whose letter was headed Mangahao Hydro, near Shannon, wrote asking the chamber to support a proposal that the railways should be handed over to a board of management, such board to exercise all the powers l of a board of directors in an ordinary joint stock company. The Government would then occupy a position similar to that of the debenture holders in a joint stock company. The board of management would consist in equal parts of representatives of (a) the railway workers, especially the technical and administrative staffs, and (b) the railway users. He proposed that the members of the board should be elected ad follows: —(1) A chairman appointed by the Government; (2) three representatives of the railway workers—one elected by the technical staff, one by the administrative staff, and one by the rank and file; (3) thre,e representatives of the , railway users — one elected by Parliament (for the travelling public), one by the farmers’ unions (for agricultural and pastoral interests), and one by chambers of commerce (for commercial interests). In this way the writer believed a really efficient and economical railway administration could be secured. The letter was received.