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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 2, Issue 9 (January 1, 1928)

Editorial. — The Year Ahead

page 4

Editorial.
The Year Ahead
.

The piping times of peace were seldom the times of progress. It requires an occasional war to create that necessity which is the mother of invention. Certainly the perpetual alertness in regard to business opportunities now called for in Railway administration and operation is sharpening up the business perception of the men in the service and making of the whole organisation an increasingly adaptable transportation instrument.

The Tramp Royal who “turned his hand to most—and turned it good” was the legitimate forerunner of the New Zealand Railways as they exist to-day—a state enterprise conducted on the lines of private business yet placing the general good of the Dominion before Departmental interests—a transportation agency familiar with one method of conveyance, but accustoming itself to other and later methods and extending its business into those subsidiary lines of action that are necessary for its fullest development.

In the course of a concise survey of the general transport position of New Zealand published in our last issue, the President of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce drew attention to some of the activities now conducted by the Department and that, a few years ago, could not have been explained except as a definite departure from the particular business upon which the Railways were engaged. This applies chiefly to the co-ordination of road and rail services so far as this has yet been made effective, the sawmill and housing scheme, and the operation of railway buses.

The linking up of rail and road became necessary immediately the quality of roads and road vehicles developed sufficiently to make through road conveyance a practicable competitor with the road-cum-railway method previously existing. It was the one way effectively to counter competition without heavy sacrifices of capital investment and it could not, in the circumstances, be classified as an unwarranted excursion or incursion into the business field.

Then the sawmill and housing scheme was adopted by the Department at a time when a rapid post-war expansion of traffic and staff required the placing of large numbers of employees in localities where no housing was available. The necessity for houses was pressingly urgent in all parts of the Dominion and private enterprise was quite unable to cope with the demand. The Department, by milling its own timber and installing a modern house-factory, was able to relieve the pressure quickly and effectively. The course adopted was the best possible for meeting the emergency. The present activities of the sawmill and house-factory should therefore be judged in relation to the whole railway situation past and present and not as a separate business operating in competition with private saw-millers and house builders.

The operation of railway buses is the feature in the present railway policy which has given rise to most discussion. This is a suburban matter, and the fashion in regard to suburban travelling has changed. When the fashion changes every progressive shop or warehouse changes its stock to suit the new demand, and the Department has just as much justification for offering buses for the conveyance of passengers when suburban trains go out of fashion as a dealer in woollen stockings has to change to silk when these become the rage. Any interference with this freedom to vary methods to suit modern demands would not be tolerated as between one private business and another. There is equally no justification for limiting the State's freedom under similar conditions.

With these and other problems to be faced in the year ahead there is no likelihood of any slackening in the tension at which the driving force of the Department is now maintained, and there are strong indications that the pendulum of public patronage is now swinging strongly in favour of the State's own transportation service.