The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 190. COSTLY RAILWAY MANAGEMENT.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 10894, 10 March 1903, Page 4

The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 190. COSTLY RAILWAY MANAGEMENT.

The system of railway manage went in several of the Australian States is costly in the extreme, and has hitherto not been at all satisfactory. In "Victoria tho Rail- , way Commissioners, to whom the management of the mines were entrusted, have been -no more successful in reducing the cost of running trains and increasing revenue than were the New Zealand triumverate which ■'so long held sway and 1 arc chiefly remembered by the strike they brought about and the general dissatisfaction they engendered amongst both employers' and the public. The experience of railway , management by Commissioners has been no more satisfactory in Victoria and the other Australian States than it was in this colony,- but the advent- of the Hon. Thomas Bent, a prominent figure in the Land Boom days of the former State, to power as Minister of Railways has been followed by such an exhibition of want of common sense and reckless mismanagement that the Victorian public are willing to pay a big price to get the lines out of the incompetent hands of the present Minister of Railways, who is running them dangerously shorthanded and still more dangerously short of the requisite hauling power, rolling stock, and absolutely necessary urgent repairs. To wrest the manage- . Mont of the lines from the incompetent hands of Bent, who as Minister of Railways receives a salary of J2IOOO a year, the State will have to pay three Railway Commissioners a total yearly sum of .£5500. When our New Zealand Railways were managed by a triumvirate of Commissioners the latter drew =83500 a year in salaries. Since the control of the lines has passed back to the hands of a responsible Minister the country has saved the greater part of the last-mentioned sum. as~ the Minister of Railways in New Zealand only receives .£I3OO per annum, and also performs the duties appertaining to the portfolios of Postmaster-General, Commissioner of Telegraphs, Industries and Commerce, Public Health and Touriste and Health Resorts. From this it may bcsoen that the Hon. Sir J. G. Ward does a vast quantity ,of public work for a very inadequate salary, seeing that he manages our railways distinctly well for the .£I3OO ho draws as a Minister holding several important portfolios. One of the New South Wales Railway Commissioners, Mr Fehon, a man of great experience on both the Victorian and New South Wales railways, who was lately in New Zealand on a visit, spoke very highly of the way railway traffic is catered for in this colony and of the evident good management of the .Department by its Ministerial head who would have -little- difficulty in obtaining a highly-paid appointment as a Railway Manager in cither the Mother' Country or any of her great colonies \vere he open to accept such a position, whicli Avould carry with it a salary very greatly in excess of that drawn by colonial Cabinet Ministers, who are expected to devote the whole of their time and abilities to the work of the State for miserably inadequate salaries.