A NEW ZEALAND INVENTION.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume 1, Issue 6, 1 March 1900, Page 14

A NEW ZEALAND INVENTION.

The Story of the New Zealand Stage System and the Hungarian Adoption of it.

By Samuel Vaile

(Inventor of the System of Administering Railways by Stages or Zones).

No. I

WN view of the statement that the Hon. If J. A. Cad man is to proceed to Europe n to study the Zone System of Hungary, *=s|; it may be in<eresting to recall the early history of the two systems, and to point out the difference in their aims, objects, and the probable results of their application. The Stage System was invented in New Zealand at the end of 1882, and placed before the public on the 3rd January, 1883. The Hungarians started their Zone System in August, 1889, six years and seven months later. Many people now imagine that I am advocating copying the Hungarian system ; on the contrary, it is the Hungarians who are copying us, and as I proceed I shall show they have made a very faulty copy. Thus New Zealand should have kept the lead in this matter, but we allowed Hungary to step in and reap the enormous advantage that ought to have been ours. We talk of advertising our colony. Would an expenditure of £100,000, aye, £200,000, advertise us as well as introducing this new system would have done ? Who ever heard of Hungary before the "Zone" system was started ? Now it is known all over the world. To illustrate any new system it is probably necessary to know what the inventor is aiming at ; and this is no doubt the reason why I fim so often asked, " What put this idea into your head, and why do you work at it so persistently ?" To answer fully would be to recount my life-work. Ido not believe that great ideas

come to anyone all at once. They are — it may be unconsciously — a gradual growth, built up, as it were, by many circumstances. So in this instance. From early youth how to deal with the poverty question occupied a large share of my thoughts. Later on, I worked among the London poor, and was brought face to face with real poverty . Ah ! What a horror it is ! What untold misery and crime it brings in its train ! No human pen can adequately describe its depths of sorrow, shame, and degradation. Why should this be, in a beautiful world like this, large and fruitful enough for us all ? No matter what the conditions, there must always be a certain portion of the community — the orphans, aged, and sick — who cannot provide for themselves ; but for those able and willing to work, there ought not to be, and there need not be. any poverty. I soon arrived at the conclusion that the real cause of poverty is the fact that under existing conditions it is not possible to make proper use of the land. That is to say that anyone, more especially a poor person, wishing to take up and make profitable use of a piece of land, cannot do so. But how to get out of this difficulty I could not see until, in 1882, quite another set of circumstances tendered it necessary that I should study the system of railway administration. This I found a very difficult task. I did not then know any " railway man " was not aware of any works on the subject, and had nothing whatever to guide me but the New Zealand public records, which were meagre in the extreme. However, I set to work,

and had not been at it long before I became convinced that it was the railway system that was responsible for the depopulation of the country districts, and the consequent development of poverty. Having made this discovery, I pursued nay task with redoubled energy, fully determined never to leave it till I had found a remedy. The outcome was the Stage System. It was not a matter of sudden thought, but the result of earnest careful study.

Naturally, I first tried to improve the present system, or rather, as Professor K. T. Ely has since aptly described it, " our abominable no-system of railway." I tried many plans, but ultimately arrived at the conclusion that It was bad, past redemption, and utterly incapable of being really improved that it must be swept away, and a new system discovered. All its underlying principles are wrong. Its sole object is to extract from the pockets of the users of railways "all that the traffic will bear." It never had any higher or better aim. Briefly, it may be described as a toll-bar system, with an invisible, but really existent, bar at every mile, for a charge is enforced for every mile passed over. It is the existence of these toll-bars that stops the settlement of the country, and forces the population back on the towns. It is evident that, say work-people, cannot live far from their work. If to live ten miles out costs them thrice the amount of living five miles out, naturally they crowd in on the centre, for it means less out of their weekly wage. For the same reason our factories are all forced into the great centres, to our manifest disadvantage in many respects. To get rid of these toll-bars, to enable the people to pass freely into the country, and at the same time to increase the railway revenue, was then my task, and I found it not an easy one. At length it occun-ed to me to ascertain what was the average fare paid by each traveller, and the average distance they passed over. I found the fare was Is. 11|d.,. and the distance thirteen miles* After this I had little difficulty, for I saw, as regards finance, that all I had to do was to

lay down a system that would offer sufliciont advantages to ensure two trips being taken where one is taken now, and to malco suro that the average resultant fare would not bo less than Is. This it is now fully provoil I have done. As regards land settlement and tho location of people in the country, my method was this: Tho present "basis of rating" is said to be the cost of service, and tho milo. The effect of this is, that tho further a district is from a great centre, and tho pooror ar.d more miserable it is, the heavier and more oppressive are the railway charges and conditions. Very littlo consideration will show that under these circumstances railways, instead of assisting these poor districts, still further depopulate and crush them down, as witness, the destruction of the old market towns and villages in (iroat Britain and elsewhere. To remedy this evil I found it necessary to entirely alter the basis of rating, and instead of making it the actual cost of service and the mile, I utterly ignored the mile, and made my basis of rating the average cost of service, and the density of the population through which the, service passes. The effect of this alteration in the basis of l'ating, must be as regards tho poorer districts, and smaller towns, to produce precisely the reverse effect of the present system, for instead of making them pay more than the richer districts for a service rendered, as they do now, under the nowfiystom they will pay very much less.f I also felt it necessary to produco a systom of fixed fares, rates, and charges. At present all these aro fixed by tho will of our railway managers only, and thoy altor them,

* The fact that, notwithstanding the groat progress and expansion that has takon place in the colony during tho last seventeen years, the average distance travelled was somewhat loss last year than in 1883 proves the utter failure of tho present " no-system" to meet our wants and requirements. t For a full description of how this rating is made on our New Zealand railways, see " Social Problems," by Samuel Vaile. Upton and Co., Auckland. Price 6d. Pages, 17 to 19 and 25 to 27 .

too often unjustly, as often and in any direction they may think fit, their avowed and only object being to " get revenue." Surely our great highways might be put to a better purpose than piling up wealth for shareholders, even when those shareholders, as in our case, are the whole community. With us our railways are merely tax-gathering machines. As the basis of rating under the new system takes the location of population into account, it became necessary to devise a system that would give an advantage to the thinly-populated districts. This is done by making the lengths of the stages unequal, the longer ones being placed in the thinlypopulated districts, and the shorter in the neighbourhood of the large towns. Thus the charge being the same for the whole or any portion of a stage — no matter what its length — transit charges are distributed over the country, and on each district in proportion to its ability to bear the strain. A temporary, but only a temporary, advantage is given to the poorer districts, and as they increase in population and wealth they will have to take a larger share of the burden. Such a system must prove of enormous value to our farming, raining, and timber producing districts, make a large demand for labour, and lead to a tremendous development of trade and commerce. The distribution of population being taken into account, rendered it also necessaiy to devise an adjustable system, one that so to speak would follow the movements of population. This is done by making provision for a readjustment of the stages after every census is taken. This introduction of the location of population into the basis of rating is the great distinctive feature of the New Zealand Stage System of railway administration. In this respect it stands alone. None of the European adaptations of it make the same provision, nor do the Americans propose to do so. 1 look upon it as its very best feature, and believe that to tamper with it would be to imperil its success, both as a social and a financial system. Yet it is the feature that the railway officials hate, ridicule, and are

determined to destroy if they can. Sir Greo. Grey and Sir Harry Atkiuson recognised its importance, arid strongly urged me never to allow it to be interfered with, if by any means I could prevent it. My proposition is, that as soon as we can ascertain how cheaply we can carry people and goods, that the charges should be all taken down to the lowest possible point, and made fixed, until altered, as' our postal ratse are now altered, by Act of Pai'liament. There is no i i eason whatever why this should not be done, except that it might interfere with "vested interests," the present "nosystem " being all in favour of the " large users " and the richer districts. It is absurd to suppose that there -is any more difficulty in fixing the charge for carrying a ton of wheat one hundred miles than there is in fixing the charge for carrying an ounce of mail matter the same distance. It is not easy to overrate the importance of having a system of fixed transit charges. How largely it would help to stimulate and develop production. Transit charges are often a most important element in the cost of production, and if the charge for distance was practically annihilated — as it would be under the Stage System — numerous manufactories would soon spring up in our country towns to the manifest advantage of trade, commerce, and our social institutions generally. The Stage System claims to be a system that will induce railway administration to scientific principles, one that will readily adjust itself to the wants and requirements of the districts served ; one that will make railways available by the very poorest of the people, and one that will enable us to make pi-ofitable use of the most distant lands, while at the same time it will confer the most lasting benefits on our chief cities. If these claims can be sustained it will be seen what a vast social revolution was entered on when it was launched upon the world. Already it has conferred great benefits on Hungary and Russia. Why has it not conferred them oa New Zealand ?