SHALL WE SELL OUR RAILWAYS?

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 245, 15 October 1891, Page 2

SHALL WE SELL OUR RAILWAYS?

(To bhe Editor.)

Sir,—Our nabional debt is, in round numbers, £38,000,000. We shall have bo pay oub in interest during bhe nexb ten years a sum of £20,000,000 or thereabouts. Our population, the adult and tax-paying portion, is decreasing, and is likely to continue to get less under presenb conditions. The railways ate bringing in abouft £400,000 par aniftiin. There is a loss upon them of fully £400,000 on the other hand, because over £800.000 is being paid oub every year in interest and working expense?. This is the outlook if we keep our railways. If, however, we sell them, for £15,000,000 say, the relief to the whole community will bo incalculable. Such a sum represents nearly half our national debt. If the offer of an amount like that were accepted, under ivhatever reasonable conditions, taxation could be dispensed with to the extent of one-third of-the Customs duties, a*" 3 * »v> :*>xoDerl;>; tax, or

land and income tax, would be required. Would it not be worth a big struggle to obtain such a consummation? Are the people of this country anxious for the Governmentto retain a toy which i 3 draining the life-blood of New Zealand, for the purpose of supporting a department ? VN hy, sir* when this colony goes ahead and becomes more thickly populated, most of our inadequate and weak railways will have to be taken up and relaid on a more practical and substantial scale. Even as things appear now, repudiation is staring us in the face. And dare any Government borrow more millions and increase the terribly heavy burdens of a population already seriously diminishing? Now, sir, we have before the public, I am glad to see, ah" actual offer from; a syndicate for purchase of the railways/ ,'The conditions are :— Purchase money, £15,000,000, An amountof £5,000,000 to be further expended by the syndicate in the construction of new lines. The passenger nnd freight tariffs to be regulated by our Parliament. If the people of this colony are not quite blind will they allow the Government to rush on to the horrid goal of repudiation, discredit, and ultimate ruin, or wilt they send in thorough men pledged to lighten their long-suflering shoulders from the lrighfcful burdens of the present and the probable,future, which, like Issachar, they bear ? Let all rotten fads be forgotten and forgiven, and Iβb the railways, be fold.— I am, etc., .'■.■"■■ ■ " ■ : Facts. , October 14th, 1891. '~,