BAILWAY ADMINISTRATION

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160639, 4 May 1920, Page 8

BAILWAY ADMINISTRATION

(From Our Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, May 1.

The public is hearing many allegatioim against the management of the railways and many suggestions for its improvement. The men, with a little leisure for airing their grievances, are not finding fault with the principle of State control, which is an article of political faith 'with most of them,-but they are loudly denouncing the travesty of State control they declare to exist in this country. It makes, they contend, for hopeless inefficiency and inevitable discontent. They want- at the head of the Railway Department a highly-trained, capable business man, with absolute authority over the staff without the intervention of a Minister or of a General Manager created by the vicious system of promotion by seniority. Given this' and an opportunity for every man in the service to make his way to the front, they are satisfied harmony and efficiency would supplant the present deplorable conditions.

ITS RESULTS. Whether this view is right or wrong is rot a question for discussion here, but a letter received last week by a Wellington resident from a young New Zealander who has just been appointed chief engineer to the newest and biggest of itbe American mail liners, at a princely salary, obtains peculiar interest from wbat is happening here at the moment. “I often think,” this lucky young fellow writes, “of the time I spent in the New Zealand railway workshops, with their red tape, their petty tyranny, their preference for brainless labour. The whole atmosphere of the service was stiflling and dwarfing. No doubt, if I had remained in the service I should have been discharged for incompetoncy. As it was I was lucky enough to be delayed in my promotion, and, taking the huff, put on my coat and came away. Very improper, no doubt, but the Americans do not break the spirit of a man.” This, at any rate, suggests the system of management in vogue here does not appeal to a pushing man.