Wairarapa Standard Published Tri-weekly, Price 1d. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1885. Railway Rates.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XVIII, Issue 1743, 7 October 1885, Page 2

Wairarapa Standard Published Tri-weekly, Price Id. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1885. Railway Rates.

Only a little time back the carriers in Masterton threatened to put horse teams on the road to carry wool to Wellington, so as to do the carrying business at lower rates than those charged by the railway authorities This action resulted in the Minister for Railways making certain reductions in the freight charges on wool and other articles. These concessions were only made by the Government under the threat of a carrying system being established in opposition to the railway. If it were right and judicious to reduce these freight rates, why did not the Government do so long before, without waiting till the concession was dragged from them ? it seems as if, under the existing system, the railway authorities will not do an act of justice voluntarily, but only when the strongest pressure it applied to them. Surely that is a very strange way of doing business. Another illustration of the same thing has just cropped up at Invercargill. A recent telegram states that tho Bluff Harbor Board and the Chamoer of Commerce there have been trying to obtain a reduction in the freight rates on the Port line, for shippers’ goods. The Minister for Public Works replies that he is willing to reduce the rates on measurement goods if the Board and the Chamber of Commerce are prepared for an increase of the dead weight rates on the Port line to the same as ruling on the main lines. The Board then resolved that to increase the dead weight rates would aggravate the difficulty. The Chamber of Commerce afterwards met, and generally supported the Board’s views. It was announced that a contract had been entered into for the carriage of 3000 tons of ships’ goods by road from the Bluff to Invercargill, at Gs per dead weight ton. The road and railway run parallel. The present dead weight and measurement i; res by rail range from 7s lOd to £4< pi. r ton actual weight.

.Now we have no doubt that the adoption of the plan of sending goods by road in opposition to the railway will bring the railway authorities to their senses and cause them to make the reductions in the freight rates which are required. But it should not be necessary to use all this sort of pressure in order to induce the railway authorities to make such reductions in the freight rates as are just and reasonable. The truth is that the management of the railways by the Government works very badly. The Government and its officeis appear to be altogether incapable ot working the railways on a sound and common-sense business system. The public have to pay high passenger s rates and freight charges, and \et with all this the railways did not prove creditable. The present system of railway management has been, m a great mem are, a failure and it is now high tune that it should be changed. This qmstion of railway management is at present being discussed by the Wellington newspapers, Tiie Evening Post declares plainly that one cause l'f *l'® ot the system is that Mr jcvirP ili: t.ie Minister for Public Works, is eimC" unwilling or afraid to adopt a course j id his own, while be allows himself to be dominated by Mr Maxwell, the General Manager Our contemporary remarks : —“ Mr Eichardson is not a strong minded man, and he has disappointed the expectations which were entertained of him when he resumed office. He is, in u-gard to the detailof railway construction, au admirable Minister, but be knows little or nothing of the business of railway management, and he has succumbed entirely to the influence of the strong-

minded manager, who really knows less of the business, but possesses a most sij)linie amount of belief in himself. fe have on former occasions j alluded to the mistake of managing railway) on what may be termed professional principles and according to engineering formula. This is the fundamental error which at present obtains It is bis professional proclivities which brought Mr Eicbarson so soon and so completely under Mr Maxwell’s influence and sway. Some day, we hope, a Minister of Public Works who is strong enough to throw asile professional traditions, and determined to have the railway worked on strictly business principles, with a view to making them pay as well as afford every possible convenience to the public at the lowest price, will come into power. When such a Minister does appear his first act should be to obtain a thoroughly competent manager from Home, a man who understands railway traffic and its requirements, who has served his apprenticeship in some of the larger companies at Home, and has learned that it is only by inducing the public to use the railways that they can be rendered profitable.” All this appears to indicate that the Government wish to get rid of Mr Maxwell, and that their organ, the Evening Post, is therefore striking the key note of an agitation against that officer. If replacing Mr Maxwell by another officer would improve the system of railway management, by all means let him go.