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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 76

The Minister for Railways' Offer

The Minister for Railways' Offer.

This so-called offer is merely a repetition of similar offers that no sane or honest man could possibly accept made on former occasions, with another most serious obstacle thrown in the way.

"(a) That a cash guarantee be deposited with the Treasury."

All the efforts of myself and friends have failed to extract from this or former Governments any indication of the amount of page 8 cash guarantee they would require. It is quite evident to me that no matter what sum we had offered, demands would have been made that it was impossible to comply with. There never has been any intention on the part of the officials of granting facilities for a trial of the Stage System.

In 1888 a number of gentlemen joined me in an offer to the Government to lease the Auckland Section of railways and try the new system; but then, as now, nothing could induce them to name the amount of guarantee they would require. The correspondence with the then Minister on the subject will be found in the Parliamentary Papers for that year. I mention this circumstance for the purpose of showing that as the demands under previous Governments were practically the same as under the present one, the control really lay with the officials, and not with the Ministers.

Let me here say that it cannot reasonably be expected that the Minister can be sufficiently conversant with details to settle this point himself; he must rely on his superior officers, and I say those officers have consistently and persistently deceived the various Railway Ministers and the public; or else they are densely ignorant of their own business.

"(b) That the trial be for not less than one year." This I readily assented to.

"(c) That the experiment be carried out under the control of the officers of the N.Z. Government Railway Department." All I have ever asked is that I may be in some way associated with them during the trial, so as to assist in seeing that it is a full and fair one. All reasonable men will, I think, see that this is necessary; for in trying any new system little difficulties are sure to arise which the inventor alone is likely to be able to readily deal with.

On the 10th of October, 1900, I wrote to Sir Joseph, asking for an explanation of this stipulation, and added, "Will you kindly let me know what is to be my position, and what are to be my powers?" On the 19th I received the following somewhat curt reply: "Beyond fixing the fares and rates to be charged, you will have neither position nor powers in carrying out the trial." I ask, could I possibly have done justice to the public under these circumstances?

"(d) That you furnish me with a complete statement of the rolling stock required in order to give the scheme a fair trial."

This is a new demand, and it can only have been made for the purpose of throwing more obstruction in the way. I have always stated that I should expect to carry three times as many fares as under the present system, and the officials ought to know what rolling stock would be required. That is purely traffic manager's business. My work has been with the Financial and Social policy that should govern the administration of railways, and with that only.

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Then I am told: "Before the amount of cash guarantee can be appraised, full particulars of the charges to be made for all classes of traffic must be furnished by you. The Department is already in possession of the fares proposed to be charged, and similar information must be given for parcels and goods traffic."

The demand is here made that I shall furnish a complete goods (including live stock) and coaching tariff. Whatever the Minister may think, the General Manager knows that it is utterly impossible for me to comply with this demand. He knows well that there is no information published, or obtainable by me, on which I could found it. As regards ordinary passenger fares it is obtainable, but not as regards any other class of traffic. Mr. Ronayne also knows that it would be a work of immense labour and of considerable expense. I reckon that it would take three or four good clerks at least three months to collate the necessary information, and these would require to have full access to the books and papers of the Department. Why should I go to this great labour and expense, simply to give the Department a chance to destroy the whole thing and pronounce it a failure? This is what they are aiming at, for they know well that I should have to work entirely in the dark.

I have repeatedly pointed out that the only proper way to introduce the new system is to apply it first to "Ordinary Passengers," then to the other items of "Coaching," and finally to "Goods Traffic." This is what the Hungarians did, and it is what we must do if we want to avoid loss; but the Department wants to create loss, and hence their preposterous demand to apply the new system to every branch of traffic at once. Again I ask: Why should I be put to this great labour and expense, merely to give the Department an opportunity to destroy my work?

It is not my fault that I have not been able to work in harmony with the officials; I have tried to do so. The first time Mr. Maxwell was in Auckland after I placed the Stage System before the public, I waited on him, in order to explain it to him. He declined to listen to me, said he had read all I had published, that he had no doubt I believed all I said, but that it was not possible for me to know, and that the officers of the Department alone had access to the necessary information. This is the spirit in which I have been treated throughout.

On arriving in Wellington last year, after leaving my card with the Premier, I had an interview with Sir Joseph, and expressed the hope that I might be able to work in harmony with the Department; then I went to Mr. Ronayne, and after pointing out that the men who had opposed me—Messrs. Maxwell, Hannay, and Hudson—were all now out of the Department, I impressed upon him the desirability of our working together in harmony, to do all that we could for the public good. I told him that on my part I was prepared to sink all the past; and did page 10 everything I could to conciliate him. It seems with very little effect. The public may make quite sure of this: If a trial of the Stage System is to be made, Parliament will have to order this to be done, in spite of the opposition of the officials. Their statement that they cannot estimate the amount of cash guarantee required is an absurdity.

Sir Joseph says that it is right that the locality that is to derive the benefit of cheap rates and fares, while other localities are paying higher ones, should guarantee the country against loss. I ask who has proposed to give any one locality this advantage? Most certainly I have never done so; I have persistently fought against it. It is the Department that has insisted on this being done, and I say they have done it for the purpose of stirring up local jealousies, and so preventing any trial taking place.

This is the proposition that I have made, and I consider that it is an eminently fair and judicious one. We must commence somewhere, and it is agreed on all hands that the Auckland Section is the most suitable. This is not because it gives the Stage System the best chance, but because it gives it the worst; for, being an absolutely isolated section, it cannot draw on any other system for support, and it has this further disadvantage that, with the exception of Auckland City, it has only one town of 4,000 people on the whole section, and then one of 1,250, then only villages. My proposition, therefore, is to apply it on this section to ordinary passenger fares, and to those fares only to begin with. We should soon see how it was working, and if it did not give good results we need go no further; for if it will not pay on ordinary fares, it certainly will not pay on any other branch of traffic. But it will pay, and pay well.

As soon as it was thus running in Auckland, I would apply it to the same branch of traffic on the lines South of Dunedin; then I would do the same on the Wellington-Napier-Taranaki Section; and then on the lines in the South Island North of Dunedin. Then I would start again at Auckland and apply the system to the other branches of coaching traffic, going from Auckland to the lines North of Dunedin, then to Wellington, and afterwards to the lines South of Dunedin. Then back to Auckland for the goods traffic, then to Wellington, Dunedin, and Canterbury.

I ask, if the experiment is carried out in this manner, what possible unfairness can there be to any portion of the Colony, and can there possibly be any serious loss incurred? Which is the fairest and most judicious proposal—mine, or that of the Department?

Sir Joseph says that, with all the officers and records of the Department to help him, he has never been able to arrive at what would be a fair amount of guarantee to ask, and yet I am asked to do this without help or information. I direct attention to the fact that Sir Joseph expressly endorsed the statement of "an Hon.

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Member" that "everyone wants a trial of the system." He also repeated the statement about the increase of traffic, saying "he recognised, as well as did any member of the House " that once the sixpenny stage system was adopted and made to apply, as it was intended under the system to all the sections of railway, there would be an enormous increase of passenger traffic."

I challenge the correctness of Sir Joseph's statement that "To say they were not willing to give a fair trial to the system was absolutely incorrect." I say emphatically that no offer of a trial that would be fair, either to the country or myself, has ever ken made. I further say that all the so-called offers were carefully and expressly so framed as to render their acceptance impossible. I further also say that in the persistent demand—which I have always protested against—that the system shall at the same time be applied to all branches of traffic, the Department sought to ensure the failure of the system, by making me propose a coaching and goods tariff without having any data to work on, and by making it unpopular by saying it gave an unfair advantage to one district.

I wish again to distinctly say that I do not accuse the different Ministers of complicity in this, but I emphatically say that the various General Managers know that I am speaking the truth: but I have little doubt that I shall be again accused of being abusive. I repeat my denial that I have ever been abusive, but have merely, without mercy, expressed the untruthful manner in which I have been met.