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general Manager's Message

Business Balance.—The events of recent years and months in railway matters, not only in New Zealand, but also overseas, shew that rapid adjustments have been necessary to preserve a reasonable balance in the business of transport. As in other businesses when the demand for services equals the available supply of facilities it may be considered that the ideal condition has been reached. The customers and custom (equal demand) at one end of the see-saw maintain a balance with the staff and equipment (equal supply) at the other. But when custom drops off, the supply end becomes unduly depressed unless an adjustment is made in staff and equipment to reduce that supply.

There has been a tendency in past years by all railways rather to over-emphasise the supply side of their business in the belief that the demand side could be left largely to look after itself. Keen competition, however, has changed the conditions, and now, owing to the fact that so large a proportion of the capital of railways is “fixed” and therefore requires an intensive traffic to make the business payable, the principal problem has become one of salesmanship. We may build fine stations, viaducts, tracks, tunnels and shops, but these become monuments rather than money-makers unless we get the business to warrant them, and we must help ourselves to get this business. The demand, therefore, must be increased, and, in this, service as well as price, matters greatly.

Organised Salesmanship to Increase Income.—I would like our staff to feel how vital to every member is the matter of business-getting. We must obtain a certain price from the service we sell, but that price can be high or low according to the organisation and effort put into producing it.

In New Zealand the national income is so intimately related to the railway income that upon this point I cannot do better than quote Sir Josiah Stamp (himself the executive head of the L.M.S, one of the most largely capitalised railways in the world). Writing on the subject of “The National Income” Sir Josiah, after likening it to a heap made up of all the work and products of work of the people composing the nation, continued, “We cannot, as a whole, get more out of the heap than we have put into it. If we each secretly make up our minds one night to put a little less on and say nothing about it to anyone else, we shall all be amazed to see how the heap shrinks in its mass. On the other hand, if all tackle their job in the spirit of Sunny Jim, there will be magic magnification before us.”

It is useless having the means and the will to produce unless potential buyers know all there is to be known about the product. Then comes the necessary advertisement to let the public know how reasonable our price is, and to make them want to use our product—rail transport.

In our own personal buying, we make an effort to obtain the best we can at the price; it is therefore fair and equitable that we should give the same, and as personality enters largely into salesmanship I would ask that all our members keep in mind the services which the Department makes available for the public and take every reasonable opportunity to let them know just how good such services are, and, in particular, to give every encouragement and personal assistance to those of our staff whose especial business it is to sell railway services to the public. I have repeatedly urged this. I make no apology for urging it again. It is a factor absolutely vital to the prosperity of our business.

General Manager.