Since its inception in June of last year, the Suggestions and Inventions Committee of the Railway Department has dealt with fifteen hundred proposals, each one of which has aimed at producing improvements in railway operations. These have come freely both from the public and the staff, and indicate the great interest taken throughout the country in current railway transport problems.

The vast range of subjects chosen by those with improvements to propose is such that it would tax the imagination of a Wells to think of a single practical particular in regard to which no suggestion has yet been put forward or invention submitted. Track, signals, and rolling-stock; locomotives and rail-cars; timetables; the equipment of yards, stations, cabins, workshops and sheds; devices for safety, comfort, and convenience in travel; the handling of goods; carding methods; ways to increase business; advertising and publicity schemes; these constitute the principal headings under which the various matters submitted to the Committee may be classified.

The importance of the work and its diversity require the attention of a committee possessing an aggregate knowledge and experience sufficiently diversified to enable the members to deal effectually at their meetings with most of the problems presented. This is secured under the committee as at present constituted, for amongst its members are officers directly acquainted with railway conditions in Great Britain, India, Canada and Australia, as well as those having an intimate knowledge of our own system, its needs and possibilities. They are authoritative representatives of the Transportation, Locomotive, Maintenance, Commercial, and Signals Branches of the service and, meeting weekly to examine the budget received since their last gathering, they have reached, through practice and experience, the point where they can quickly appraise the value of most of the notions put forward. Some proposals are old or impracticable; others have already been weighed in the balance and found wanting; but many are obviously useful, others are intricate and require close study, while others again clearly show the rare working of genius.

When the information possessed by the committee is not sufficient to enable them to judge the value of a suggestion, they do not hesitate to call in specialists in the subject under review, or to refer the matter for trial to the head of the branch concerned. Every suggester may, therefore, rest assured that his idea will obtain full consideration on its merits. The arrangement by which members of the committee are kept in the dark as to the identity of every suggester lends an additional assurance that the suggestion shall receive the unbiased consideration of the Committee.

Already the effect of providing this outlet for suggestions and inventions has been to place at the disposal of the Department many devices which have facilitated operations. It has set members thinking how to produce improvements in their work. It has scotched many foolish notions, and made operative a scale of awards sufficiently attractive to induce enterprise along right lines in all grades of the service.

Railways In East Africa.

At a dinner given recently by the Manchester Cotton Association, the Right Hon. Mr. Amery, Secretary of State for the Dominions, replying to the toast of “Empire Development” observed that the Cabinet had authorised him to introduce a measure asking for a guarantee to British credit for the raising of loans to the extent of £10,000,000 for a progressive railway policy in East Africa. He did not for a moment suggest that that sum would be sufficient, for he believed much more would be required in the future. He had also secured the sanction of the Treasury to devote an appreciable portion of that fund to research. The whole problem of Africa was largely one of research into diseases.