Part 5 (1/2)
The railway factor in New Zealand is thus a very important one. It is one also of special interest, as the New Zealand Government not only owns but manages the whole of the lines, an arrangement not found in other parts of the world to conduce to either efficiency or economy in working. It seemed so impossible to believe that a democracy could be keeping politics out of business that I fear I asked a great many very impertinent questions on the subject of political graft in connexion with railways. The map of New Zealand offered an invitation to inquisitiveness. It showed that the country possesses a remarkably large number of small unconnected railway lines running inland from the various ports. Even to-day there is no complete through line in the South Island, though progress is being made in linking up branches to obtain it. One was at first inclined to attribute this state of things to political pressure brought to bear upon the Government to supply individual political const.i.tuents with more than their share of transport facilities at the expense of the general traffic requirements of the country. On going over the ground, however, two perfectly innocent reasons leapt to defend the lines. The first is that in a country as well supplied as is New Zealand with harbours round the coasts, the natural main artery of traffic is by sea and not overland.
The second is that the mountain backbone of New Zealand is so tremendous that the cost of through railways which, owing to the lie of the land, must necessarily cross this backbone is enormous. This is exemplified by the stupendous works, culminating in a five-mile tunnel, now under construction to link the west coast with the east in the South Island.
The same applies to the North Island, it being impossible to traverse the central railway from Auckland to Wellington without being impressed by the difficulties that have had to be overcome, alike on the Raurimu spiral in the middle, and at the famous one-in-thirteen incline near the southern terminus.
Mistakes have, no doubt, been made sometimes, and it is quite possible that in some cases local influence may have bettered public utility, both in the routes chosen for new lines, and in the order of their construction. Upon the whole, however, the Public Works Department of the New Zealand Government, which is responsible for the building of the railways, is to be most warmly congratulated upon the lay-out as well as upon the standard of excellence attained in the matter of the work.
The three-feet-six-inch gauge adopted in New Zealand may possibly have to be changed eventually to the standard four-feet-eight-inch gauge in use in Europe and America. The decision to adopt the narrow gauge, however, was come to at a time when there was much to recommend the selection, since it enabled railway facilities to be afforded very much sooner than would have been possible had the more expensive standard gauge been chosen.
The New Zealand Government has also pursued a sound policy in doing renovations, even where they have involved considerable structural improvements, out of revenue. I was informed that original cost has, all along, been replaced out of working expenses, where changes in the lines have been made on capital account, and that since about 1907 all relaying of lines and replacing of bridges and rolling-stock has been charged to working expenses. Again, a considerable length of line has been relaid each year, with heavy rails and new sleepers. The people of New Zealand in consequence now own the entire railway system of their country at a cost far below its present market value, and that too in a state of structural efficiency, which, especially after five years of a war to which the railways sent seven thousand of their trained men, is very remarkable. The Royal train could testify to that, running as it did over difficult country, from one end of New Zealand to the other, at a pace which was seldom less than forty, and sometimes went as high as sixty miles an hour, fast travelling on a narrow gauge anywhere.
The railways are under a general manager responsible to a minister-in-charge, at present the Prime Minister, and independent of the Public Works Department, whose responsibilities end with construction. In order to minimize political interference with traffic charges, a rule is enforced that all rates must be published, thereby facilitating discussion of them. No special local tariff also can be sanctioned without public notice being first given. All rates are thus subject to criticism in Parliament. Again, at present, ninety per cent.
of the traffic of the country, including both pa.s.sengers and goods, is carried on a flat-rate basis applicable to all lines, and all places. Of the remaining ten per cent., all but a small proportion is carried on concession rates designed to help the development of backward areas, it being recognized that the railways are only adjuncts to the opening up of the country and its resources. The fractional proportion which remains is carried at special enhanced rates, but this does not affect the general position, as it applies only to a few isolated sections of not more than twenty miles apiece, where construction has been unusually expensive, and where high rates have been adopted to cover interest on the cost.
A further safeguard is provided by the fact that a rate can only be changed on the recommendation of the general manager, who is a member of the public service, and therefore debarred from taking part in politics.
Very much the same safeguards apply to the appointments. The personnel of the railways in New Zealand is permanent, no new Government having so far ventured to make any wholesale changes. The great majority of the men now in the service have begun at the bottom, either as unskilled apprentices or as cadets admitted after pa.s.sing a qualifying examination. I was unable to hear of either promotions or fresh appointments for political reasons.
That the above are real, and not merely theoretical conditions, is strikingly shown by the financial results obtained. The dominant fact is that, whereas in the United States and in England, Government control of railways has been accompanied by heavy loss during the war, in New Zealand the railways have remained on a paying basis throughout, though the war rise in New Zealand traffic-rates has only been twelve and a half per cent. in the case of pa.s.sengers, and twenty-one per cent. in that of goods, as compared with from fifty to seventy per cent. in the case of the railways in Great Britain. At the same time the basic wage for the employees has been increased in New Zealand by thirty-three per cent., to which eight per cent. has recently been added, making a total wage rise on New Zealand railways of forty-one per cent.
As regards the cost of the carriage of goods on New Zealand railways, as compared with British, the claim is made by the New Zealand railway authorities that their rates are the lower. I was unable to obtain any conclusive evidence upon this point, during the short time available, owing to the difficulty of extracting average figures capable of being fairly compared. As regards pa.s.senger rates, I understand that the present New Zealand flat-rate is twopence per mile for ”upper cla.s.s”
pa.s.sengers, and one and one-third pence per mile for ”lower cla.s.s,”
rates which certainly compare not unfavourably with those obtaining in England.
The gross annual revenue of New Zealand railways is now about five and three-quarter million sterling per annum. Of this sum two million is allotted to payment of interest at four per cent. upon the forty million sterling of capital cost. The balance of three and three-quarter million goes to working expenses, which before the war averaged sixty-four per cent. of gross revenue, and are now sixty-six per cent.
Government goods consignments are carried at full rates, and troops at a concession rate of one penny per mile return. There is no paper inflation, therefore, in the figures.
I have given the above particulars at some length, as the management of so big a business organization as the entire railway system of the country is obviously a good criterion of the nature of the political administration as a whole.
I may add two further instances of New Zealand methods. The first is that the Government has embarked upon a seven-million-sterling scheme for the development of hydro-electric power for industrial purposes, the country being remarkably provided with facilities for this cla.s.s of enterprise. The installations, several of which are already well advanced, are situated in widely separated localities spread over both of the islands, so that a large proportion of the country will benefit.
The total power which this scheme is expected ultimately to develop amounts to something like half a million horse-power. The work was to be proceeded with as fast as labour, which was very scarce at the time of the Prince's visit, became available. The second point concerns the resettlement of returned soldiers upon the land and their restarting in business. Upon this object the New Zealand Government had expended a million sterling, of which the bulk consisted of loans on easy terms.
The feature that seems significant of the general situation of New Zealand, was that practically all the fifty thousand men demobilized had been found employment, and that the loans were being rapidly repaid, one-eighth (117,000) having already been refunded, while less than six per cent. of the ten thousand men who had received advances were reported as irregular with their instalments.
Travelling as the party did from end to end of New Zealand, such national enterprises as the working of the railways, the development of hydro-electric power and the restarting of the men returned from the war, were often discussed. The considerations which emerged are certainly encouraging, not only from the point of view of those already settled in the Dominion, but also to that wider community throughout the Empire that looks to Australasia as a future home.
The Prince left Christchurch by train on the morning of the 17th May, on his journey to the southern end of the South Island and pa.s.sed once more through the Canterbury plain, a well-watered land of pleasant homesteads and wide flat fields just then white with stubble from a recently reaped wheat crop. His first stopping-place was the thriving town of Ashburton, where an address of welcome was read by Major Galbraith, at one time one of the best football players in New Zealand. In the course of his reply His Royal Highness mentioned that he was a farmer in a small way himself, which made him specially interested in the splendid farming country through which he had been pa.s.sing. The Prince's colonial farm is in Alberta; he added it to the trophies of his Canadian tour in 1919. He has already stocked and improved it and there is not a Canadian from Halifax to Vancouver who does not look confidently to this holding to bring him back there at an early date. Temuka, famed for its trout-fis.h.i.+ng, and Timaru, a rising watering-place, came next upon his itinerary. Timaru is a port for the s.h.i.+pment of chilled meat, in connexion with which several substantial cold-storage works could be seen from the train. In this centre the Prince was given a picturesque reception on the wide sands of Charlotte Bay, a popular bathing-resort in the summer months. The cliffs here form an amphitheatre from which twenty thousand people, including two thousand children from the schools around, witnessed the usual reading of a civic address, and march past of returned soldiers, red cross nurses, and other war workers. In the afternoon the train traversed a fine bridge over the Waitaki river, which is here the dividing line between the Scotch settlers of Otago and the English of Canterbury. The Prince also stopped off at Oamaru, and inspected a collegiate school, one of the foremost in New Zealand, where an exceedingly smart cadet corps paraded before him, and he was conducted by the headmaster, Doctor F. Milner, over buildings and grounds comparable to those of a first-cla.s.s public school in England.
One of the features of the inst.i.tution was unenclosed dormitories, in which the lads sleep out of doors, in all weathers, with wonderfully beneficial results to their health and endurance.
Dusk fell when the train was some twenty miles from Dunedin, the Edinburgh of New Zealand, but the sky was lighted throughout the whole of this distance by enormous bonfires, every village and every homestead along the line competing as to which could make the biggest flare against the forest and hills behind. Around these bonfires the local inhabitants had a.s.sembled and cheered the Prince as the train ran through. The night was alive with enthusiasm. Little old weary England, at anchor far in her North sea, might have been glad to feel it.
Port Chalmers, the Rosyth of Dunedin, was a wonderful sight. Coloured flares were simultaneously lighted in all parts of the town, as the train pa.s.sed along the top of the cliffs. The harbour was thus shown up like an inland lake, in a setting of hills, against which houses, s.h.i.+pping and docks stood out in brilliant relief.
At Dunedin the train climbed down into a fairyland of electric illuminations, beginning at the railway station, where Mayor Begg and the members of the civic council were a.s.sembled. A procession in cars, through Princes Street and Stuart Street, to the Dunedin Club, where quarters had been arranged for the Prince, showed him half a mile of decorated, illuminated route, kept in absolute order by boy-scouts, cadets and school-children, though every one of Dunedin's sixty thousand inhabitants appeared to be partic.i.p.ating in an orgy of cheering, flag-waving and flower throwing behind this slender barrier.
On the following day His Royal Highness attended an open-air reception, in the presence of an immense gathering in the city octagon, beneath the cathedral, the steps of which were occupied by a big chorus of girls from secondary schools. Here he received nine addresses of welcome. In replying, he told Dunedin that the part she played in the life of New Zealand was fully worthy of the n.o.ble traditions which her pioneers brought from the schools and colleges of the Old Country. Later on the Prince visited the hospital, whence he drove over the heights overlooking the sh.o.r.e, and down a steep winding track to Port Chalmers, where, amidst more decorations and cheering crowds, the Harbour Board and Local Borough Council presented addresses.
On another day, in the presence of twenty thousand people, grouped amongst green olearia bushes on gra.s.sy sandhills by the bay, the Prince inspected seven thousand children representing two hundred and fifty schools. A pretty incident occurred in the march past when the wide ranks of the children opened, and a score of white-clad, black-stockinged maidens trooped up and curtsyed before the Prince to the strains of the March of Athol played by a drum and fife band in Gordon plaids. The biggest and the littlest girl in the deputation then stepped forward and presented the Royal visitor with a tiny greenstone memento, purchased for him by the school-children themselves. A further event of the visit of Dunedin was a march past by lamplight in the drill hall. Five thousand tickets to this ceremony were issued to returned men, each of whom came accompanied by relations or friends, so the numbers present must have been considerable.
From Dunedin the Prince went by train to Invercargill, the fifth city of New Zealand. On the way he pa.s.sed, in a snow-storm, the woollen mills of Mosgiel, also the Mount Wallace and Kaitangata coal-mines. Receptions were given in the towns of Balclutha, an active farming centre; Gore, the head-quarters of flouris.h.i.+ng flour-mills, and Mataura, the location of hydro-electric works, paper-mills and cold-storage plant.
Invercargill was reached in cold wind and rain, yet the whole population was found a.s.sembled in the streets. From the station the route led to the racecourse, where in the presence of an immense gathering, undismayed by the weather which had turned the whole place into a quagmire, addresses were presented from the city of Invercargill and from the Southland County. In the course of his reply the Prince referred to Invercargill as being the last stopping-place on his New Zealand tour, and added that fate would be unkind if it prevented his renewing his recent experiences at some future time.