Page:Hine (1904) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/183

 we do not avail ourselves sufficiently of the company of representatives of the accounting department. They do not and should not report to us. They, however, compile statistics from data which we furnish. We want to have our data in such good shape that they will not misinterpret. As they count our Australian ballots, it is important for us to know how to put the cross opposite the eagle or the rooster. On the other hand, the service will not suffer if we have a chance, on the ground, to show the inconsistency of some arbitrary requirements.

I carried by an idea in a recent letter. I asked the man on the opposite run to take it back; but he, too, had a big switch list and a time order. So it has been an over in the freight room until now I bill it free astray. The thought is that our organization should provide automatically, as in the army and the navy, for the next in rank available to assume the duties of an absent or incapacitated official. A superintendent has to be sick or absent for quite a long time before we designate an acting superintendent. We let the chief clerk sign for him, an absurd fiction if long continued. Why should not the