The Spirit of Service.

All the officers connected with the Commerce Train were imbued with the spirit of service, which must be the keynote of every publicly owned institution, said Mr. Sterling. It had to be remembered that the railways of New Zealand were a public service before they were a profitearning institution.

In conversation with one northern farmer to whom he had not disclosed his identity he had found that the farmer's idea was that the country wanted railways on which his fertiliser could be brought in, and also roads on which he could travel by motor-car, but he would still send out his wool by water-carriage as being the cheapest way. If that were the general idea, “then God help the officers who were trying to make the railways pay.” But he felt that as the people of the country grew in their sense of responsibility for the transport, and recognised that the railways were a community capital investment, they would more and more recognise where the railways stood in the economic service of the community.

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Referring to the resources of the Far North. Mr. Sterling said he had scrutinised the district in the light of the knowledge he had gained in the period he had been closely associated with farming. He thought the portion of the country he had seen was full of infinite possibilities, but these had to be unlocked by the key of cheap transport. Until that key was provided, the district could not make the advance it looked for.