Politics and Management Issues Affecting the Nineteenth Century Colonial Railways of New Zealand
p. 47-75
Résumé
In the British colony of New Zealand the issue of transport was, in the public mind, primarily associated with access and prosperity. This was a huge bone of contention in the public sphere. ‘Without motion there is no life’ was a favourite slogan of Samuel Vaile, the leading railway reformer of the period. An economic downturn in the 1880s brought the colony to the point where its national debt, about a third of which had been spent on building State railways, became a millstone around its neck. At the same time, political control of the state railways was increasingly seen as inept and a fertile field for patronage and jobbery, with the service poor and overly expensive. The largely conservative Government of the day consequently decided in 1887 to follow the example of several Australian colonies and install a Board of Commissioners to run the railways. The new Commissioners were to have almost complete managerial autonomy, being answerable only to the whole of Parliament.
Despite a struggle of wills developing between Vaile, the widely disliked Joseph Maxwell, General Manager of Railways, and the politicians, the Government sidestepped public opinion and in 1889 appointed Maxwell as one of the new Railway Commissioners. In 1890, however, a Liberal Government was elected which believed that State railways should be controlled again directly by the people, for both idealistic reasons and control and access to patronage. Additionally, Labour supporters wanted greater union power and revenge for the Commissioner’s (especially Maxwell’s) role in the local failure of the 1890 Australasian Maritime Strike. After a protracted political struggle, the Liberals finally reasserted political control of Railways at the end of 1894, removing the Commissioners altogether.
Texte intégral
1Politics and railway management interacted to a considerable extent in the British colony of New Zealand in the later nineteenth century. In fact, the construction and operation of railways from 1870 until well into the twentieth century could be described as an on-going political football. While many pressure groups manœuvred for improved rail access, better rail service and reduced tariffs and fares, the political leaders of the colony struggled to balance servicing the debt of constructing the railways with public demand. They also struggled with the temptation to use and misuse the many opportunities Railways1 offered to buy or reward various segments of the electorate. In 1887, under the burden of severe financial problems, the conservative side of the political spectrum moved to distance management of the operation of the colony’s railways from political manipulation. In place of a General Manager answering to the Government, a Board of Management comprising three Commissioners was appointed. This Board answered only to the whole of Parliament (Upper and Lower Houses). Three years later an incoming Liberal Government embarked on an eventually successful three-year struggle to return Railways to direct Government control. These changes reflected, and were largely driven by the development and the shortcomings of the democratic processes, ideologies and pressures present in the New Zealand society in the period.
2New Zealand is located in the South Pacific about 1,200 miles (or 2000 kilometres) east of Australia. The country was colonised by mostly British Europeans from as late as the 1840s onwards.
3This late development and relative isolation meant that despite main line railways developing in Britain from 1825 onwards, in New Zealand there was not the population to pay for or patronise Railways until after the middle of the 19th century.
4The first steam hauled railway was built by the Provincial Government of Canterbury in the South Island (then usually called Middle Island). This opened in 1863 and ran for a few miles from Christchurch towards its port of Lyttelton.2 A lack of funds, and in some parts of New Zealand a lack of ability, meant that by 1870, only just slightly over 50 miles (80 kilometres) of railway had been opened in three different locations.3
5The geography of New Zealand presented some problems to those who desired the construction of railways. The country has a long and narrow shape and mountainous backbone. North to south, New Zealand consists of two main islands totalling about 1000 miles or a little over 1500 kilometres long. An estimated 80 % of the settled areas of the colony were within 50 miles (80 kilometres) of the coast. Any railway network paralleling the coast thus faced stiff competition from coastal shipping for freight and passengers between most of the centres of population. At the same time, the centres of both main islands presented considerable and expensive topographical challenges to the construction of railways. In addition, both islands had relatively low population densities in the nineteenth century. These factors led some influential colonists to claim that no trunk railway system was necessary, believing all necessary transport could be effected by connecting the various hinterlands to each coastal port.4
6In 1870, a new Colonial Treasurer, Julius Vogel, devised a radical solution to the economic problems the young colony then faced. He decided that the boost the colony needed would best come from a large investment in immigrants and public works, particularly a railway system connecting at least the main centres. From an original scheme costing the then huge amount of £10 million, of which £6 million needed to be borrowed, he talked Parliament into approving a scheme involving borrowing £4 million.5
7Although there were a few detractors, the plan was enthusiastically embraced by most, jobs and access to land and markets being core issues in the colonists’ quest for success. Railways rapidly became the people’s magic carpet, vastly more desirable than most of the alternative forms of transport available.6 With rough dirt roads and sometimes steep and seasonally wet conditions, railways were generally the only really effective way of carrying large quantities of people and freight overland. Coastal shipping, and in some places the droving of animals or hauling farm produce by traction engine did, however, provide varying levels of competition.
8Unfortunately, the way politics worked in provincially centred New Zealand did not make for good railway business. At this time, New Zealand had a two-tier Central Government as well as local provincial governments. Politicians in the Central Government came primarily with allegiance to their provincial voters. This meant not only did the most powerful South Island provinces of Canterbury and Otago get the largest share of the early railway construction investment, but also the provinces stopped Vogel using the proceeds from Crown land sales to repay the railway construction loans.7 The provinces decided they wanted this income for themselves.8 All Central Government was able to impose was to make the provinces pay a share of early contributions to the sinking funds intended to finance repayment of the railway loans. These sinking funds were then used by later Governments when short of money. Thus political control resulted in the saddling of the fledgling railways system with a heavy debt.
9Governments and individual politicians quickly found that popular decisions regarding the construction of railway lines and their operation won votes, while unpopular ones lost them, on occasion to the extent of causing a Government to fall. Political manipulation meant, therefore, that many completely uneconomic branch lines were constructed decades before the completion of the main lines of the system envisaged by Vogel.9 Railway management also came under considerable pressure to run the system on the one hand to keep the public happy, but on the other to pay as much as possible of the interest on the debt incurred in construction.
10From 1870 to 1880 the colony’s debt increased by £20 million to £28 million, almost half of this increase having been spent on railway construction.10 The railway system was expected to try to pay as much as possible of the interest incurred on this debt, as any shortfall had to be made up out of widely detested taxation. Although the money lenders were charging the colony up to 5.5 % per annum, Railways only managed to earn at best approximately 3 % on their capital debt, earning as little as 1.7 % in the economically difficult financial year ending 31 March 1880.11
11Triggered by a serious banking collapse in 1879 at a time of falling world commodity prices, a change in government brought conservatives to power who decided the solution to the colony’s problems was a sharp retrenchment, including a reorganisation of railway management. In 1880, the first General Manager over the whole rather fragmented railway system, Joseph Prime Maxwell, was appointed.12
12Maxwell’s brief was to improve efficiency and profitability of the Railways Department, as well as to successfully centralise its management and resolve staff promotion problems. This he set out to do, taking a very hard-nosed approach to staff and service issues, with such success that he was seen by all the Governments of the 1880s as the best sort of railway expert to have.13
13 Many colonists, however, rapidly developed a rather different point of view. They observed that New Zealand’s railways did not compare well with the railways of old England regarding speed, comfort or tariff.14 Mark Twain later confirmed this point of view, writing about his travels through New Zealand by train. He commented caustically about how New Zealanders derisively called their trains ‘Ballarat Flies’, because the Australian Ballarat Fly was a ‘whizzing green’ object with a ‘stunning buzz-saw noise... the swiftest creature in the world except the lightning flash’, quite the opposite of the sluggish New Zealand trains. He then told how, on occasion, a passenger could dismount and walk ahead of the train while it was underway, climbing back on when the passenger had had enough.15 Several newspapers carried a story about a man travelling on the rear platform of the last carriage of a Napier to Woodville train. This man fell off while the train was in motion. Eventually, the crew was alerted and the train stopped. The passenger soon walked up to the train commenting, ‘You needn’t have waited for me. I should have caught you up! ’16
14Railways management was seen by a vocal segment of the colonists as intractable. While staff tried to be helpful, the rules they were required to impose were complex and often harsh.17 Freight tariffs and passenger fares were high. Most trains ran at a maximum speed of about 15 miles (25 kilometres) an hour. For one period during the later nineteenth century, the system, such as it was, comprised 14 unconnected sections in different parts of the colony.
15As the economic recession of the 1880s worsened, a prominent Auckland estate agent, Samuel Vaile, concerned at the resulting slump in rural property values as well as an upsurge in poverty, devised a new approach to railway charging.
16He realised that while long distance travel was expensive, the average fare paid by passengers was not very much, since most people only travelled short distances. Most long-distance trains ran with only a few passengers. Because of the expense, many people would only travel if they had to. Freight tariffs were similarly overly expensive, restricting both industry and the economic development and hence the settlement of the more remote countryside.18
17Vaile concluded that if all fares were cut sufficiently, three or four times the present number of people would travel. The numbers travelling would then keep up the level of income needed by Government to pay the interest on the debt attributed to Railways. He went a step further, however. He concluded that if short distance travel subsidised long distance travel, farming would become economically viable a lot further away from the main centres. This would not only increase the value of rural property, but would encourage large numbers of poverty-stricken unemployed to become the desirable sturdy yeoman farmers the colony needed to populate the undeveloped remoter countryside and improve the national economy. Many people of the time thought a lack of access to land trapped the workers and the unemployed in the cities in poverty.19 Vaile simply took the extra step of visualising how to better use railways to solve this problem.
18When Vaile went public with this scheme in 1883, Railways General Manager Maxwell took an almost instant dislike to him and his idea.20 Although the public became increasingly supportive of at least giving Vaile’s scheme a trial, Maxwell had the ears of the Government, and blocked any such trial from happening.
19While Maxwell was vilifying Vaile to the Government, Vaile became vitriolic about Maxwell in the public arena. Vaile wrote prolifically, promoting his scheme and attacking railway management. He also travelled the country to encourage support for a petition to Parliament to trial his scheme.
20This so encouraged public criticism of the service Railways offered and enthusiasm for Vaile’s scheme that the Government felt obliged to appoint a Select Committee to enquire into Vaile’s proposals. Although the evidence showed Vaile’s scheme to be well worthy of a trial, the Government tagged the Committee’s findings with the requirement that the local councils in any area to be served by any trial had to strike an extra rate to cover the expected shortfall in railway takings.21 General Manager Maxwell went so far as to suggest to the Government that the amount recovered should be the annual average of the entire revenue for that portion of Railways.22 While the Government did not go to this extreme, no council was prepared to make such a politically unacceptable imposition on their ratepayers, and no trial was held.
21Meanwhile, the conservative-led Government decided to follow the example of the Australian colony of Victoria and have three Railway Commissioners manage Railways.23 These Commissioners answered to the whole of Parliament (meaning the House of Representatives and the Legislative Council) and the Governor, instead of to the Government of the day.24 This, the conservatives hoped, would reduce Railways’ vulnerability to political manipulation, jobbery25 and corruption, as well as make the Department more profitable. By removing management decisions from their own political responsibility less than palatable policies could be pursued concerning both staff and service issues. This, it appears they hoped, would result in dramatically improved profitability without directly affecting their own re-election chances.
22The Government initially announced a first-class railway expert would be sought from England or America for the role of Chief Railway Commissioner.26 After a whole year, however, the Government then appointed the widely disliked existing Railways General Manager Joseph Maxwell and his trusty Assistant General Manager, William Hannay, as Railway Commissioners. A well-regarded non-railwayman, James McKerrow, was transferred from being New Zealand Surveyor-General to Chief Railway Commissioner.27 No greater railway expert was found. This arrangement saved the Government nearly half of what an overseas appointee would have cost. McKerrow was paid £1200 p.a. and Maxwell and Hannay £1000 p.a. each, in place of at least an expected £3000 and £1500 respectively, based on what was paid by the Australian colonies to their Railway Commissioners.28
23The new Railway Commissioners immediately set out to at least appear responsive to various public wishes. Customer opinions were sought and a number of changes consequently made. Train timetables were altered to attempt to meet passenger needs.29 New rolling-stock and, in time, new locomotives were increasingly provided.
24From Vaile’s point of view, however, Maxwell continued to block any trial of Vaile’s revolutionary fare system, despite the fact that Hungary had by now adopted a form of the Vaile system with dramatic success.30
25Railway charges were gradually lowered, although not to the extent or with the cross subsidy promoted by Vaile. Political attempts to influence railway operation were soundly rejected, to the delight of the editor of the New Zealand Herald.31 Profitability to some extent improved, although the economy of the country remained very flat, with many frustrated or unemployed colonists emigrating to Australia.
26Other troubles were not long in coming, however. In 1889, the successful London Dock strike took place. Unions throughout Australasia collected contributions to support the dockers in their struggle.32 The eventual success of this strike doubtless helped encourage what was to follow in the Australasian colonies, the year 1890 seeing union activity in the Australasian colonies come to a climax.
27Evidence on the NZR Head Office files indicates that one issue Maxwell took with him to the position of Railway Commissioner was a hidden brief from the then conservative Premier, Sir Harry Atkinson. This was to reduce the railway wages bill, despite Atkinson’s statements to the contrary in Parliament.33
28As General Manager, Maxwell had had a history of implacable resistance to labour movement requests and demands, having sacked or demoted a small number of staff in the early 1880s for striking.34 He had for some time already been promoting a scheme to the Government whereby the waged and salaried staff of Railways would be made to contribute into an accident and retirement fund. This was ostensibly to replace government compensation for accidents and a pension scheme originally funded by Government, but closed to new salaried civil servants (including railway staff) in 1884. Railway wage earners had never been eligible for a government pension. Maxwell now decided to press for this employee compulsory contribution insurance fund to be instigated in law such that while it would need approximately £22,000 a year to run, the men would have a total of £50,000 taken from their pay as contributions. This would provide the required reduction in railway wage and salary costs.
29A majority of the men did not want such a scheme, since they already contributed to similar funds run privately by various friendly societies. What the men really objected to as well as the compulsory nature of the fund was that they would forfeit their contributions should they resign or be discharged from the Service. Consequently, instead of the broad support Maxwell told the Government his scheme would gain from the staff, Maxwell’s move in 1890 to have the Government introduce a Bill legislating for Railways Servants’ Insurance precipitated almost the entire staff of Railways (an estimated 4200-4300 of the 4500 men) into joining the previously small, Auckland-based Associated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS), specifically to resist his intentions.35
30This union then immediately affiliated itself with the newly formed New Zealand Maritime Council (and the New Zealand Trades and Labour Council), in turn affiliated with many Australian unions through the Australian Trades Hall and Australian Labour Federation.36
31Initially the Railway Commissioners tried to refuse to recognise the ASRS on the grounds that many union executives were not railway employees. When the staff voted overwhelmingly to support strike action, the Commissioners backed down. A number of major staff grievances were amicably sorted out at the following conference, including the payment of overtime.37
32In 1890, the New Zealand Maritime Council tried to involve the newly enlarged railway union in a boycott against the New Zealand publishing and printing firm, Whitcombe and Tombs. Whitcombe and Tombs refused to cease employing non-union labour, including women and young people on lower rates of pay, in their printing works. The Commissioners sternly refused to let the ASRS stop the carriage of any freight, and the proposed action dissolved into the Maritime Council calling for a public boycott of Whitcombe and Tombs’ products instead.38
33Within weeks, a second action followed, being the much larger 1890 Maritime Strike of Australasia. This strike started as a dispute between the Australian Mercantile Marine Officers’, the Shipmaster’s Association of Australia and the Ship Owners’ Association (SOA) over manning levels and the right to unionise.39 The affiliated Australian Maritime Council quickly called out many of its associated unions in support, the strike spreading to New Zealand because it was aimed at all ships of the SOA. In particular this affected the Union Steam Ship Co., who opted to continue sailing with non-union crews. The New Zealand Maritime Council involved the ASRS by asking the union to call out any men told to load or unload ships manned by non-union crew, especially those of the Union Steam Ship Co.40
34The ASRS agreed, promptly directing men in Westport and Lyttelton to walk off when they were ordered by the Commissioners to service ships on the Australian run manned by non-union crew. The Railway Commissioners’ response was to sack all striking railway servants after allowing the men just 12 hours to reconsider their actions.41
35Realising there was uneven railway staff and little public support for an all-out railway strike and that it was likely most railway servants would simply lose their jobs if they struck, the railway union backed away from the all-out strike action many of its Canterbury members called for.42 The Maritime strike collapsed a few weeks later, leaving bitterness and poverty for many strikers.43 In consequence of their stiff resistance to letting the men become involved, the Railway Commissioners became lauded by many in New Zealand for having helped the failure of the strike.44 The ASRS, on the other hand, was deserted by almost four-fifths of its members, quickly being reduced to fewer than 1000 men.45 Most men, the few surviving records claim, did not want to be involved in other unions’ disputes. They also did not wish to be put in an adversarial position with the Railway Commissioners and thus lose their jobs. Despite continued pressure from the ASRS and various members of the public, most of the sacked striking railway servants had to wait up to two years to get their jobs back. In fact the Commissioners now went as far as to refuse to have any further dealings with the Union.46
36Soon after the failure of this strike came the 1890 Parliamentary elections. By this time there was a widespread feeling that the Government led by the then seriously ill Sir Harry Atkinson was hopelessly ineffectual. The Liberal leader John Ballance was increasingly seen as the best leader in the House. This and other factors, such as the Labour movement’s intense resentment at the failure of the Maritime Strike, led to the New Zealand Liberal party winning a majority in the Lower House of Parliament.47
37 Included in the new Government were a small number of Labour Party members, who had not forgotten the role the Railway Commissioners had played in the collapse of unionism in Australasia. It was only a few months before a Private Member’s Bill was submitted to Parliament for the removal of the Commissioners. The new Liberal Premier, John Ballance, however, took the position that while he considered it wrong to have Commissioners in an independent Board of Management controlling Railways and although he thought the people should control their own largest industry in the short term he did not want to alter the government’s legal relationship with the Railway Commissioners under the 1887 Act.48 He warned the Commissioners publicly that they were ‘on their trial’, and said that if Railways were not run to ‘encourage the industries of the colony’, the Commissioners’ Board of Management would be abolished at the end of their term of appointment.49
38It was noted at this point that the Railway Commissioners were doing a reasonable job and had widespread support in the colony, particularly from industrial, commercial and farming interests.50 The Commissioners were on five-year renewable contracts, meaning that early termination would involve considerable compensation. Importantly, they were also the best experts available, at least in the colony.
39 In addition, any law change had not only to pass in the House of Representatives, but also in the Upper House, the Legislative Council. Here, the Councillors supporting Liberal policies were very much in the minority, not the least because of the seven extra conservative members the outgoing Atkinson Ministry had appointed when it became clear the conservatives had lost the election.51 As the Liberals rapidly came to find, the Legislative Council was determined to block all legislation they saw as unacceptably socialistic. They certainly wanted no chance of a return to the corruption and jobbery of the past on Railways. For these reasons, the Government did not support that first Bill to remove the Commissioners.
40Two or even three major factors appear to have governed the course of affairs regarding the management of Railways from this point on.
41Two of these factors centred on the new Minister for Public Works, Richard Seddon. Seddon soon bridled at the independence the Railway Commissioners showed at almost every approach he made to them. Traditionally, Railways management answered to the Minister for Public Works, with a suitable deference by Management towards the Government. Maxwell and the other Commissioners, being guaranteed their independence from the wills and wiles of Government, responded to requests strictly according to the law. If they did not have to give some requested information and they did not wish to, they did not. Their responses were clear and to the point, but neither subservient nor always comprehensive.52
42In addition, Seddon clearly quickly determined that he wanted to control what happened in the country’s single biggest industry. This was not simply a case of Seddon’s renowned desire to control. As the conservative Press was quick to point out, Railways under the direct control of Government presented a huge opportunity for manipulative electioneering, as well as corruption, jobbery and the rewarding of one’s friends and useful acquaintances.53 Seddon, time was to reveal, wanted all these politically advantageous possibilities for himself and the Liberal Government.54
43Revenge and damage control constituted the third factor.55 The unions, their supporters and newspapers like the Christchurch Lyttelton Times56 refused to forget the Commissioners’ role in the Maritime Strike. From the unions’ point of view, the system, in particular Maxwell, was the problem. Removal of the Railway Commissioners, especially Maxwell, was desirable not only as revenge for the sacking of the striking railway servants, but also to reduce the chance of such successful resistance to union action reoccurring.
44Liberal ideology also called for more direct involvement of the people in the control of Railways. This can be seen in how the National Liberal Association, founded in Dunedin in 1891 after the Liberals had come to power, pushed for what they saw as nationalisation of Railways.57 Although Seddon did not always see eye to eye with this organisation, since they also called for nationalisation of the land, mines, coastal marine services and other ideas such as the provision of a state bank and state sponsored full employment, this represented an ongoing expression of socialistic thought in the colony.
45In Parliament, Seddon and his supporters, needing to change public and political opinion, increasingly attacked the Railway Commissioners. This included on occasion a serious misrepresentation of the Commissioners’ written words and actions.58 For instance, in the 1892 Public Works Statement, he severely criticised the performance of the Railway Commissioners.59 He concentrated on one section of railway, where tonnage and passenger numbers had fallen, mostly through a poor harvest, ignoring the fact that over the whole system, railway returns had increased. He ignored costs having increased through Parliament directing some charges to be debited against working expenses that the Commissioners had had no way of foreseeing.60 The Railway Commissioners were thus put in a very difficult position, because despite their relative independence, their traditional mouthpiece in Parliament was the Minister for Public Works.
46The next year, 1892, Seddon brought down a Bill designed to give him a controlling position on the Railway board over the Railway Commissioners. This Bill was withdrawn when the Government realised there was insufficient support to pass it in the Lower House of Parliament.61
47In 1893, Premier Ballance died prematurely.62 One of the things Seddon did after taking over the premiership was reintroduce essentially the same Bill concerning management of Railways. The only major difference was that this time the Minister was to be put on the Board without the power of veto.63 This Bill passed in the Lower House with a majority of four votes after acrimonious and, on Seddon’s part, highly misrepresentative debate. The Legislative Council, however, then deleted all the Bill’s clauses, passing instead a simple 12 month extension to the Commissioners’ appointed term of office. While the Legislative Council thus effectively said the issue should await the subsequent Government, since the General Election was to follow the end of that Parliamentary Session, Seddon had the Government drop the Bill instead.64
48 At the end of the year, general elections were held, the first where women were enfranchised. Seddon won these with a landslide victory, particularly buoyed up by policies that appealed to the rural voter.65 One policy Seddon made sure was included was increased Government control of Railways, although many candidates minimised its importance in their speeches. For most voters, however, financial incentives for farmers and the possibility of land for settlement were of far greater importance.66
49Following his electoral victory, Seddon chose to let go Commissioners Maxwell and Hannay early the following year rather than renew their quinquennial appointments on the due date.67 Two new Commissioners were appointed on nine month contracts, James McKerrow retaining the Chief Commissionership. Only then, confronted with the Liberal landslide victory and the removal of the country’s only real railway experts, did the Legislative Council agree to support the end of the Railways Board of Management. On the 1 January 1895, Railways again became a Government Department. One of the new short-term Commissioners, Railways’ West Coast Traffic Manager Thomas Ronayne, become General Manager, directly answering to the Government of the day.
50After Maxwell departed, Railways Management finally officially recognised the Associated Society of Railway Servants. Of the changes previously required by Maxwell for such recognition to take place, only one departure was eventually made. This was the permitting of the Secretary of the Union to be an independent employee of the Union, instead of having to be a railway servant. All other members had to be railway servants. No allegiance was allowed with any other unions or labour federations. Non-union railway servants were not to be made to join the union. These conditions were agreed to overwhelmingly by union membership despite the ground-breaking Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act (1894) specifically naming the ASRS as having the sole responsibility to negotiate employment issues with Railways Management in the presence of the Judge of the Court of Arbitration.68
51With the removal of the Commissioners, the men were given a more fair system of appeal and hence predictable chain of promotion, instigated in place of what some had previously experienced as arbitrary managerial direction. Unfortunately for the salaried staff, despite previous assurances, Premier Seddon had the suppression of their pension rights for the six years of Commissioner control continued and their salaries reduced by approximately 20 %.69 No complaint at these actions by the ASRS has been found by this researcher, which might indicate one reason for the formation of the independent Railway Officers’ Institute as the union for the salaried railway staff only a few years later.
52Railways under Seddon’s control did become synonymous with political patronage.70 This control likely helped his extended period of premiership, which lasted until his death in 1906. At the same time fares and tariffs, although remaining considerably higher than in the railway systems of other countries, were incrementally lowered and concessions given to various Liberal-supporting interest groups, particularly farmers. Even the North Island Main Trunk was eventually finished, although not opened until 1909. All of these changes, it should be noted, could have been directed by a majority vote in Parliament without the removal of the Commissioners and their Board of Management.
53What this study shows is that railways in nineteenth century New Zealand represented such a huge opportunity for public and politicians alike that it was very difficult to maintain economic sensibility in the face of desire and opportunity. Railways tended to be built where the greatest political pressure demanded and run as directed by the politicians who usually controlled them with often if not outright unsatisfactory then questionable outcomes. Only when the Railway Commissioners were appointed with a degree of political autonomy was this not the case. Even then politicians vilified the Board of Management of Railways and continued to saddle the organisation with miles of extra, mostly unremunerative branch lines while not proceeding with any real alacrity to complete the network of main lines.
54The move to vest the New Zealand Railways in a Board of Management did not fail because of any inherent weakness in the system. Instead it was terminated because managerial independence from direct political control did not suit the ideology, desires and strategies of the new Liberal Government. The Labour movement rejected the Commissioners’ strength and independence in union issues, particularly as demonstrated in the Maritime Strike. The Liberal Premier, Richard Seddon, wanted absolute control of the biggest single industry in the colony for social and political reasons, which included personal and Governmental power as well as the opportunities thus opened up for political jobbery and electoral advantage. From the point of view of many railway workers, the Commissioners represented an extension of Maxwell’s sternly repressive, one could say, Victorian capitalist approach to unionism, as well as his highly intelligent but intractable and often covert managerial style. Similarly, many in the public felt some ill will towards Maxwell for his obdurate style of management before he became a Commissioner, when he was essentially carrying out the directions of Government. There is no doubt that Vaile encouraged this negative feeling with his vociferous attempts to have his stage fare system introduced.
55Many Liberals held that the people (or at least their representatives) should control the important aspects of society, which certainly included the Railways. For these colonists, the Commissioners were an icon of the previous conservative Government. A growing proportion of the colonists not only liked the idea of greater social responsibility but also thought Seddon to be working to get the best he could for them. Many thought he was the working man’s friend.71 They were unconcerned at Seddon’s use of political fictions and abuse of the Commissioners, particularly Maxwell, in his attempts to achieve his desired control of Railways. Despite what were actually poorer services and higher charges compared with the railways of many other countries, Railways under the Liberals became a service that ‘suit [ed] the New Zealander better than any other... both as democracy and as political economy’.72
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Troup, Gordon. Footplate, The Victorian Engineman’s New Zealand. Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1978.
Troup, Gordon, & W. A. Pierre (Eds.). Steel Roads of New Zealand—an Illustrated Survey. Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1973.
Twain, Mark (Samuel L. Clemens). In Australia and New Zealand. 1897. Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1973.
Vaile, Samuel. ‘Our Railway Commissioners and Their Powers— No VI’. NZH (15 August 1889): 6.
Vaile, Samuel. Vaile Family Collection of autographed letters, manuscripts and typescripts 1850-1913 and the Samuel Vaile Scrapbook. Auckland City Libraries Special Collections, NZMS 153.
Watson, James. A History of Transport and New Zealand Society, Wellington: Ministry of Transport, 1996.
Watt, J. O. P. Southland’s Pioneer Railways 1864-1878. Wellington: The New Zealand Railway Locomotive Society Inc. (NZR & LS) 1965.
Newspapers
Bruce Herald. Milton, New Zealand.
Clutha Leader. Balclutha, New Zealand.
Evening Post. Wellington, New Zealand.
Financial Times. London, United Kingdom.
Lyttelton Times. Christchurch, New Zealand.
New Zealand Herald. Auckland, New Zealand.
Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney, New South Wales. The Press. Christchurch, New Zealand.
List of Reference Abbreviations
AJHR Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives LT Lyttelton Times
NZPD New Zealand Parliamentary Debates
NZH New Zealand Herald
NZR New Zealand Railways
Notes de bas de page
1 Railways with a capital ‘R’ is used here as shorthand for New Zealand Government Railways, or NZR.
2 Dew, Les, The Country Commuter—The Regional Railway Network of Christchurch, Volume 5 of On the Move: Christchurch Transport through the Years (Christchurch: Christchurch Transport Board & Tramway Historical Society, 1988): 3.
3 Fletcher, R. S., Single Track—the Construction of the Main Trunk Railway (Auckland: Collins, 1978): 30, 33-5, 41, including a quote from the Daily Southern Cross leader (18 July 1867) that considered in trying to build a railway, all Auckland had created was a ‘monument of folly, conceit, incapacity, and want of principle of all and sundry’; J. O. P. Watt, Southland’s Pioneer Railways 1864-1878 (Wellington: The New Zealand Railway Locomotive Society Inc., 1965): 21-31, 34, 37.
4 Pierre, W. A., ‘Railways on a Shoestring (1863-1899)’: 8-18, in Gordon Troup & W. A. Pierre (eds). Steel Roads of New Zealand—an Illustrated Survey (Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1973): 8-9.
5 New Zealand Parliamentary Debates [NZPD] v. 7 (Wellington: Government Printer): 105-6, 576-7; J. B. Condliffe, New Zealand in the Making—A Study of Economic and Social Development (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1959 [1936]): 160; Raewyn Dalziel, Julius Vogel Business Politician, (Auckland University Press/Oxford University Press, 1986): 104-8; Keith Sinclair, A History of New Zealand (Auckland: Penguin, 1980 [1959]): 152-3.
6 NZPD, v. 7, 342, 395; John Alexander Dowie, ’Studies in New Zealand Investment 1871-1900’, unpublished PhD thesis, (Australian National University, 1965): 194-195.
7 Dalziel, 125-8; NZPD, v. 10, 373, 655; v. 11, 623-4, 632,956-7.
8 Dalziel, 161-164; Muriel F. Lloyd Prichard, An Economic History of New Zealand to 1939 (Auckland: Collins, 1970): 124.
9 Burdon, R. M., The Life and Times of Sir Julius Vogel (Christchurch, Caxton Press, 1948): 115-116; Prichard, 130; Charles Rous-Marten, New Zealand Railways to 1900, (T. A. McGavin, ed.) (Wellington: New Zealand Railway & Locomotive Society, 1985): 9-10; NZPD, v. 7, 108.
10 The Appendix to the House of Representatives [AJHR] (Wellington: Government Printer, 1880), B-1, 4 and E-1, 3-6, sets out that the railway construction debt at 31 March 1880 was £9.6 million (with a further £912,000 committed) out of a total debt of £28.5 million. Almost £21 million of this total had been borrowed since 1870.
11 AJHR, 1880, 1, D-F9, E-1, 89, 111, Annual Report on Working Railways, by the Commissioners of Railways, respectively North Island and Middle Island.
12 Dangerfield, J. A., Dunedin’s Matchbox Railway (Wellington: NZR & LS, 1986): 10.
13 Ibid., 61; Gordon Troup, Footplate, The Victorian Engineman’s New Zealand (Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1978): 47.
14 AJHR, 1877, E.-2 A, 1-4, ‘Report of the Commission on the Auckland Railways’ (‘No. 1, Appointment of Commission’; ‘No. 2, The Report’).
15 Twain, Mark (Samuel L. Clemens), In Australia and New Zealand (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973 [1897]): 315-6. This was especially true of the Rimutaka Incline, near Wellington.
16 New Zealand Herald [NZH]. 6 October 1890, 5, editorial news item, quoting the New Zealand Times.
17 AJHR, 1877, E.-2 A, 1-4, ‘Report of the Commission on the Auckland Railways’ (‘No. 1, Appointment of Commission’; ‘No. 2, The Report’).
18 Vaile Family Collection of autographed letters, manuscripts and typescripts, 1850-1913 (Auckland City Libraries Special Collections, NZMS 153), box 1, package 1 (1), no date.
19 Fairburn, Miles, ‘The Rural Myth and the New Urban Frontier—An Approach to New Zealand Social History, 1870-1940,’ New Zealand Journal of History, v. 9, no. 1 (April 1975): 3-21.
20 New Zealand Railways Head Office File 88/2443, Samuel Vaile’s System of Railway Management—Trial on the Whangarei Section 1883-1888, Ministerial Advice dated 29 June 1883. (There was no such trial.)
21 AJHR, 1886, IV, I-9, i-ii, dated 12 August 1886.
22 New Zealand Railways Head Office File 88/2651, dated 3 October 1888.
23 NZPD, v. 58: 1887, 95.
24 Ibid., v. 59: 1887, 238-260.
25 Jobbery: unfair means employed to secure some private end.
26 New Zealand Railways Head Office file, LE 11888/197.
27 NZH, 12 January 1889, 5, ‘Our Railways—Commissioners Appointed’.
28 Ibid., 11 June 1888, 5, ‘Home and Foreign’ + ‘NSW Railway Commissioner’; 22 June 1888, 5, ‘Political News and Gossip’ + ‘The Railway Commissionership’, quoting the Wellington Evening Post. By comparison, an ordinary adult male labourer would earn between approximately £100 and £150 p.a.
29 Ibid., 15 February 1889, 5, ‘Mr. Maxwell Interviewed’; Lyttelton Times [LT] (18 February 1889): 4 (leaderette).
30 Vaile, Samuel, ‘Our Railway Commissioners and Their Powers—No VI’, NZH (15 August 1889): 6; (London) Financial Times, 29 October 1891 (clipping on Railways Head Office file 98/440, Table of Traffic on Hungarian Railway System, 1891-1898).
31 NZH (14 September 1889): 4, (leaderette); (23 September 1889): 5, ‘Railway Commissioners—Resistance to Political Pressure’; (17 December 1889): 5, ‘Parliamentary News’ + ‘Wages of Railways Servants’; (23 September 1889): 5, ‘Railway Commissioners—Resistance to Political Pressure’; 14 May 1891, 4 (leader). The editor of the Lyttelton Times, local morning daily newspaper near the large sheds the Commissioners were refusing to pay for on sound legal grounds, was not so complimentary. He (wrongly) decried the Railway Board as ‘able as well as willing to snaits fingers at the requests and recommendations of Parliament’.—LT (14 September 1889): 4 (leader).
32 LT (11 September 1889): 5, ‘The London Strikes’; (15 November 1889): 4 (leader).
33 New Zealand Railways Head Office file 99/1402 Government Railways Superannuation Fund, Part 11891-1893.
34 Henning, J. D., ‘Government Railwaymen and Industrial Relations: 1880- 1894’ (Unpublished MA thesis, University of Auckland, 1984): 5-9.
35 Ibid., 21-22.
36 LT (12 October 1890): 4 (leaderette); NZH (15 October 1889): 5, ‘Railway Employees and Their Grievances’; (25 October 1889): 5, ‘The Railway Insurance Bill—Meeting of Employés’.
37 NZH (16 May 1890): 5, ‘Railway Servants—Threatened Strike—The Commissioners and the Society’; (16 June 1890): 5, ‘The Ballot of Railways Servants’; AJHR, D-4 (1890): 1-63 (Full report of the conference).
38 NZH (5 August 1890): 5, ‘The Boycotted Firm’; (16 August 1890): 5, ‘The Boycotted Firm’; (18 August 1890): 4 (leader).
39 McIvor, Timothy, The Rainmaker: A Biography of John Ballance Journalist and Politician 1839-1893 (Auckland: Heinemann Reed, 1989): 169; Stuart Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004): 121-122.
40 NZH (27 August 1890): 5, ‘The Union Steamers’.
41 LT (4 September 1890): 5-6, ‘The Maritime Strike’ + ‘The Men Paid Off’.
42 Ibid., (5 September 1890): 4 (leaderette); NZPD, v. 69, 1890, 800, from the speech of W. P. Reeves.
43 NZH (20 November 1890): 5, ‘Distressed Strikers—Pitiful Results of the Recent Labour Difficulties’.
44 Brooking, Tom, Lands For the People (Dunedin: University of Otago, 1999): 71-72; NZH, (22 November 1890): 5, ‘The Elections’ + ‘The Minister for Lands at Wyndham’; and various correspondence to the NZH.
45 New Zealand Railways Head Office file 13/4096/1 Part 1, Commissioners James McKerrow & J. P. Maxwell to the Chairman, Labour Bills Committee, Legislative Council, (14 September 1893): 5.
46 New Zealand Railways Head Office file 91/978, Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants—Resolutions Passed, circa 28 March 1891, correspondence Chief Commissioner James McKerrow to John Joyce, Lyttelton.
47 NZH (15 August 1889): 4, (leader); (26 August 1889): 6, ‘Correspondence’ + ‘The Times Out Of Joint’; LT (6 December 1890): 4 (leader).
48 New Zealand Herald (29 January 1891): 4 (leaderette); (17 July 1891): 5, ‘Parliamentary News’ (4 August 1891): 5, ‘Mr Vaile’s Scheme—Deputation to Ministers’.
49 LT (11 December 1890): 5, ‘Mr. Ballance Interviewed—His View of the Situation—Position of Parties—The Opposition Policy’ + ‘The Railway Commissioners’, from a New Zealand Times report.
50 LT (17 July 1891): 4 (leader).
51 Bassett, Judith, Sir Harry Atkinson (Auckland University Press/Oxford University Press, 1975): 164; W. P. Reeves, The Long White Cloud (Auckland: Golden Press, 1980 [1898]): 279-281.
52 NZH, 4 (leaderette); (14 July 1892): 5, ‘Parliamentary News’ + ‘Attack on the Railway Commissioners’; also a number of Railways Head Office files.
53 The Press (22 April 1893): 6 (leaderette) ‘Our Railway Correspondence’.
54 O’Connor, P. S., Richard John Seddon (Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1968): 28-30.
55 NZH (19 March 1892): 4 (leader); Sydney Morning Herald (13 October 1892); Angus, John H., ‘City and Country—Change and Community—Electoral Politics and Society in Otago 1877-1893’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Otago, 1976): 587.
56 At this time, the Lyttelton Times claimed to be the largest morning paper in the colony, with a daily distribution of approximately 8500 copies and a strong supporter of everything Liberal.
57 NZH (6 June 1891): 4 (leader).
58 Ibid., (28 September 1892): 6, ‘The Public Works Statement’; (29 September 1892): 5, ‘Railway Management—Mr Seddon’s Attack on the Commissioners—Interview with Mr McKerrow’.
59 NZPD, v.78 (1892): 435-6.
60 AJHR, 1891, d-2, 11; 1892, D-2, 19; NZH (29 September 1892): 5, ‘Railway Management—Mr Seddon’s Attack on the Commissioners—Interview with Mr McKerrow’; (14 October 1892): 5, ‘The Acting-Premier and the Railway Commissioners’.
61 NZH (26 September 1892): 5, ‘Our Railways—The Government and the Commissioners—Discussion on the Estimates—The Railway Bill to Be Dropped’.
62 McIvor, 237-238.
63 NZH (24 July 1893): 5, ‘Parliamentary Notes’ + ‘Railway Bill’.
64 Ibid. (28 September 1893): 6, ‘Parliament’ + ‘Legislative Council’ + ‘The Railway Bill’; (3 October 1893): 5, ‘Control of Railways—The Bill to Be Abandoned— Government May Appoint Commissioners’.
65 Bruce Herald (1 December 1893): 2 (leader); Clutha Leader (1 December 1893): 4-5 (leader).
66 Hamer, David, The New Zealand Liberals—The Years of Power, 1891-1912 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1988): 272; Michael Bassett, Sir Joseph Ward—a Political Biography (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1993): 46 & 53; Brooking, 121-122.
67 LT (22 January, 1894): 5, ‘The Railway Commissioners—The New Appointments’.
68 Henning, 86-87; Erik Olssen, Building the New World -Work, Politics and Society in Caversham 1880s-1920s (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1995): 128, 272; Statutes of New Zealand, Session 1894, 580 Victoria (Wellington: Government Printer, 1894), ‘The Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, 1894’, 22-44.
69 NZH (10 October 1894): 6, ‘Parliament’ + ‘House of Representatives’ + ‘Railways Bill’; The Press (26 December 1894): 5, ‘New Zealand Railways’; NZH (26 December 1894): 5, ‘Wellington News Notes’ + ‘The Railway Arrangements’. The pro-Liberal LT managed only to detail salary reductions for a few tomanagers.—LT (28 December 1894): 5, ‘Wellington Items’.
70 O’Connor, 28-30; Watson, James, A History of Transport and New Zealand Society (Wellington: Ministry of Transport): 1996, 136-7.
71 O’Conner, 15-16.
72 Lloyd, Henry Demarest, Newest England (New York: Doubleday, Page & Co, 1902): 74-75.
Auteur
Otago, New Zealand
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