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A Message To All Railway Servants.

The following message to Railway Servants, by the new Minister of Railways, the Hon. D. G. Sullivan, was sent to the Editor of “The Standard,” and appeared in a recent issue of that paper.

I Have pleasure in complying with the request from the Editor of “The Standard” for a brief message to be published in his paper.

The railways are not only the most important of the transport services of the Dominion but one of the greatest of our industries. They provide employment for 15,000 people, and have invested in them some #60,000,000 of the public money.

For some years past it has been fashionable, on the part of some critics, as they turn their eyes from the steam haulage train that has rendered such wonderful service in the past in the development of the nations, to the fast moving motor services on the roads, then upwards to the aeroplane moving rapidly across the skies—to say, “The railways are obsolete: their day is done,” and I suspect that many a railwayman, however proud of his service, however gallantly he may have defended it from the attacks of those promulgating “newfangled notions,” felt in his innermost consciousness that possibly the critics were right, and that one sad day in the future his loved engines and cars would pass into the limbo of forgotten things.

But to-day, the railwayman can lift up his head again, for a new hope dawns on the horizon in the shape of the oil-driven rail-car. The writer recently had the opportunity of taking a trip on one of these cars, and confesses to a thrill of enthusiasm as he recalls the rapidity of motion, the dustless track, the clean, sunny air, the absence of road shocks at intersections, or of competing motor traffic. That hope revives every time I look at the two pictures of the new rail-cars in their bright red, but artistic, paint, sailing along through fields of green, which hang in my Ministerial office, telling me of that new day when the railways will return to their unchallenged supremacy in the Transport world.

Maybe, the mental picture that I have conjured up is overdrawn. But, honestly, I don't think so. I think, however enthusiastic it may sound, that the future will prove it sober and faithful to fact, and if that is so, the railwayman can cast a look of derision at the comparatively slow motor traffic on the roads, and even at the mechanical eagle of the skies, because of its load limitations; and, with the new hope of better things in the domain of science and mechanics, there is, side by side with that, new hope for the public in improved and cheapened travel facilities in all parts of the country, and new hope for our splendid railway staff, in improved remuneration and conditions of work. That these things will synchronise with the coming of the new Labour Government, with its strong humanitarian outlook and concern for those who are rendering useful service, is something that I am devoutly thankful for.

Greetings to all readers of “The Standard,” and particularly to the employees of our great railway service.

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