QUEENSLAND RAILWAY MANAGEMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 249, 20 October 1924, Page 13

QUEENSLAND RAILWAY MANAGEMENT.

(To the Editor.) S ! Sir, —May I be permitted to submit j g the following additional facts regarding I g the management of Queensland's rail- I g ways? There is evidently an idea abroad , » that prior to the Labour Government E taking control of the affairs of that ijj State the railways were a paying pro- 1«► position. Such is not the case. For : g over thirty years the anti-Labour party j «» was in control of the government of j g Queensland, including the management g of the railways. For all that period the ! S lailways only shewed a surplus, and | 2 llion a very small one, on three occa- j g siun-. in twenty-seven different years ; g a loss was disclosed. The total loss | g amounted lo £10.000.000. For the last ; g nine years of anti-Labour rule railway ; g cn<ts increased by lt'.'l per cent. For j g I lie nine years of Labour rule the costs $ have increased by SI per cent (this , » inclmles ihe worst of the war period).'© The actual mileage of railways in \ 5 Queensland is ti 17-1. The total number I g of employees is 11i.940. The number of • employees per 100 miles of line is 2SO. g Before the advent of a Labour Govern- g ment the number was 317 per 100 miles, g The average return pqr employee is now " £337, When Labour took control the | £ average return was £246 10/ per I £ employee. I S Perhaps the following comparisons $ may prove of interest. Before Labour 2 c-iiiue into power an engine cost £3000. 1 I Today the cost is up to £13,000. The , 3 cost nf a carriage in 1915 was £1300. ' % To-riay the cost is £2700. Fuel has in- j c . creased in cost by over 00 per cent, S whilst, the following percentages mdi- J ente the wage increases: Engine-driven, ' S iiii per cent: firemen, 87 per cent; ! J guards, o*2 per cent; surfacemen, Kn ]>cr | \ cent. During this same period fares j 1 have increased 121 per cent and freight * only a fraction of the increased cost S (much less than in any other Australian « .State). And let this final comparison < ne remembered, that Queensland's 617-1 J miles of railway serve a population of J 824,(100 (not ' 7. r io,ooo as previously { stated) to this Dominion's 3000 miles for J over one million and a quarter.—l am, j jctc., P. H. HICKEY. J