RAILWAY EARNINGS.

A MINISTERIAL THUNDERBOLT. (Special to Herald.) AUCKLAND, this day. In the North we have been led to'believe that it is only the Lawrence-Rox-burgh, Otago Central, and other South Island lines which do not pay. Sometiling like a thunderbolt was dropped by the Hon. J. A. Millar on a deputation which approached him m regard to tho duplication of the Parnell tunnel. Ihe Minister said ho wanted those comprising the commission to look upon the question, not from the point of view of convenience, but of necessity. It had been said that tho additional traffic from tho North Auckland railway when it was through would not.be worth considering. In his opinion the North Auckland line would never pay one-half por cent. A general chorus of "Ohs" greeted this statement, and Mr G. L. Peacocke, president of the Railway League, ventured to suggest that the present returns did not go to prove that assertion. Tho Minister ; Yes, but you have only been working as far as Helensville, and there taking m the whole trado of the North.

Mr Peacocke : There arc 50,000 people m the North. Admittedly tho line mini through a patch of poor country, but there is good land as well as bad. The Minister: But will. the good make up for the bad ? v

Mr Entrican : I Mould like to call your attention to the complaints of those m the North "about freights on that line. A fruitgrower at Port Albert thought he would send a shipment of canned fruit from Welford to Auckland by rail. When he came to inquire into freights he found it. was cheaper to. carry his goods to Helensville by boat, and then to rail them to Auckland. ''He"" found it cheaper still to send tho fruit by boat to Lyttelton and thence back to Auckland.

The Minister: I kno*»v perfectly well .that- railway traffic cannot compete with Avater traffic, and I am not going to try to make it. I am not going tt> run the railways at a loss if I can help it.

Mr Alyers : But would it not be advisable to encpuragg industry and trade by cheaper freights t The M inister : The railway freights are already wcrked out to scale for that purpose. Mr Kntrican : It is rather an anomaly tliat tinned fruit ' can be brought from America at^a cheaper rate than it ran from the. Kaipara.