Vital Work of the Railways.

New Year Greetings to one and all! Stirring days are these for every individual member of our great Commonwealth of Nations, but with such remarkable unity of purpose, and such faith in the righteousness of our cause, there cannot be the slightest doubt as to the ultimate issue. Nazi aggression is definitely doomed, and sooner or later the world will once again move along the more peaceful paths of progress.

From the heart of the Homeland let me tell you of our deep appreciation of New Zealand's magnificent response to liberty's call. Britain's half-a-million railway workers, like their colleagues in New Zeaalnd, do not seek to crush the honest German worker, but they are determined that never again shall peaceloving individuals here and throughout the world constantly have to exist under the menace of aggression and brute force. Once the misguided German people rid themselves of brutal and senseless authority, good neighbourliness among nations will automatically return and world-peace become an established fact.

Normally, at this season it is my custom to review, in these Letters, the activities of the Home railways during the preceding twelve months. Now, however, this review must give place to a brief account of how the railways are meeting the peculiar conditions with which they are faced, and the remarkable work they are performing in the struggle.

For four months we have been at war with Germany. Since they were taken over by the Government, the Home railways have never before performed such vital national service, and never before have railway employees of every grade worked together more determinedly, or with more successful results. Railways have for long been recognised as the arteries of the army, and the railway machine, harnessed to the tremendous requirements of the Forces and of Home Defence, once again has risen to the occasion in striking fashion. One responsibility alone—that of moving across the Channel men and supplies in the opening stages of the campaign—called for phenomenal effort. Thanks to wellprepared plans, however, and the united and unstinted labours of the railway rank and file, this immense movement was carried through without a single casualty, and now, day by day, vital transportation services between England and France operate as if by clock-work, protected by those two sure shields, the Navy and the Air Force.