TRANSPORT PROBLEM.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18158, 24 October 1930, Page 7

TRANSPORT PROBLEM.

RAILWAY COMMISSION. BLUNT FACTS FOR LEGISLATORS. ATTITUDE OF THE MINISTER. * (Special to Times.) WELLINGTON, Thursday. Although" the discussion upon the reports of the Railway Commission and the Select ’ Committee on Railways Construction did not reach any definite conclusion in the House of Representatives on Tuesday night it went some way towards further Informing the public in regard to the transport problems confronting the Dominion'. The Railway Commission had placed blunt facts before the House, claiming in effect, that the adoption of its proposals would result in an addition of some £600,000 a year to the revenue derived from the lines, and though the Hon. W. A. Veitch, the Minister of Railways, was not disposed to subscribe in full, to the estimate of the Commission, he admitted that a vgry considerable sum might be obtained by a general revision of the rates and charges on the lines. He now stands committed to a movement in this direction. .Rates and charges on the English and Australian lines generally are substantially higher than those prevailing in this country and the Minister is pledged to review the situation.

Construction. The question of railway construction‘now in progress is likely to occasion much more heated discussion than will the que'stion of rates and charges. Already the three Reform members on the Railway Construction Committee —Mr D. Jones, Mr C. E. McMillan, and Mr Waite—who constitute only a comparitively small minority—are demanding .that work shall be immediately discontinued on the Gisborne-Waikokopu, the WharanuiParnassus, and -the Kawatiri-Inanga-hua lines, and, of course, they will have the support of members of their party \yho happen 'to have their chief interests on this side of Cook Strait. The leader of the Opposition, the Right Hon. J. G. Coates, who is less impetuous than are some of his followers, would have a commission appointed to determine the fate of these railways. There is something to say for his suggestion, but in these days an impatient public hesitates to give commissions precedence over its Parliament, and its attitude is not unreasonable. Democracy prefers the multitude of counsellors.