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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 76
How are we to secure a trial
How are we to secure a trial
Of the new system? For my part, I have done about all that is in my power. The theories in respect to railway administration and finance, which I put before the public in 1883, have now passed the theoretical phase. Actual practice has proved their soundness in every respect. Parliamentary Committees have reported that the new system ought to be tried. Every local governing body in the colony, with the exception of three or four, has petitioned that it may be tried, and so have many thousands of citizens. Wealthy Auckland men have offered to try it at their own risk and expense; but nothing can be done. Why? Simply this: The railway officials and the Government will not, until they are forced to do so, part with the power the present system gives them.
Every member of the present Government has voted that the new system ought to be tried, but now they have the power in their own hands they will not order a trial. Again I ask, why? For this reason: When they were private members they did not know the political power the present system gives to the Government: now they know it they will not part with it.
Let the Stage System come into force, and our railways could no longer be used for political purposes, any more than the Post Office can, for, as in the postal service, all the fares, rates, and charges would be fixed, and there could be no favouring political friends at the public expense. This is why the Government is opposed to the new system.*
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What can we do? many people ask me. There is no use in sending petitions to Parliament, they are simply treated with contempt, and so are the reports of their own committees, on those rare occasions when they are contrary to the wishes of the Government. The only plan is for the different constituencies to induce the member who represents their district to take the matter up, and bring pressure to bear on the Government. If in each district a few of the leading people were to send a joint letter to their member, requesting him to give special attention to this matter, it would soon ensure a trial, for the Government would find out that it meant votes.
What I ask is not much. I have repeatedly offered to lay down the Stage System on a section of our railways. I should prefer the Auckland section because it is more against me than any other one. It has more unprofitable ends than any other section. They have all large towns at each end of the system, and considerable towns intervening: Auckland has only one town, and no considerable towns intervening, therefore the financial results must, be much worse than from any other section. Still I am not afraid, and wish to put the new system to the severest test at once.
* During the debate which took place in the House on the 15th August, 1890, on the motion of Mr. T. Thompson (now Minister for Justice) that the Report of the Railway Rates Committee be referred back for the purpose of taking my evidence, Mr. Cadman (now Minister for Railways) spoke as follows:—"I hope the result of this will be that at all events we shall have at least one line to give this system a fair trial. We can very easily take the Auckland-Waikato line, the New Plymouth-Wanganui line, or the Napier-Woodville line, and give the matter a fair trial; and that will perhaps end the whole question. We all know that no great reforms are made without being well fought out. This question the Auckland people are determined to fight for, and I hope they will continue to agitate until it has had a fair trial. I shall vote for the amendment that the report be referred back to the committee."
On the debate on the 8th September, 1891, on Mr. W. L Rees' Bill giving me power to try the system on the Auckland lines, the Hon. Mr. Seddon (now Premier) said, "If they (the people) were wealthy, if they had the money, and could afford it, there was no doubt that the scheme as proposed by Mr. Vaile, as regarding colonisation and settling the lands far away from a market and from centres of population, and bringing sparsely settled districts within a near radius of the centres of population, would be complete."
The Hon Mr. Seddon, in his Public Works Statement in 1892, said "The returns from the working do not show at all a satisfactory condition of affairs, and the representations of Mr. Samuel Vaile, of Auckland, as to the working of the Zone System indicate that at no distant date—possibly on the expiry of the Commissioners' term of office—it might teas well that a trial of this system should be made on our railways."
From six to eight years have now pissed since these utterances were made by gentlemen who are now both Ministers, but no trial of the Stage System is ordered.