RAILWAY LOSSES.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 258, 31 October 1929, Page 25

RAILWAY LOSSES.

TRAMS IN SAME POSITION.

COMPETITION OF MOTORS.

TREATING ALL ALIKE.

(By VIATOE.)

The only really inconsistent reasoning at the conference of the Associated Chambers of Commerce last week seems to have occurred in the discussion on • i Government and municipal trading. This was evidently regarded as a matter of paramount importance, for it was the only remit on which a special committee ■was set up, and it was the only subject which the conference decided to go into committee to discuss. Very fewwill question the wisdom of the conference in attaching such, importance to the matter, nor the final decisions reached, for it is generally conceded that if these activities cannot compete against private enterprise on equal terms, and without being bolstered up with a lot of privileges and concessions, this is prima facie evidence that they are economically unsound. If the corporate management cannot contribute to the general expenses of the Dominion and the local bodies in the same proportion as its private competitors, then these latter or the community in general must make up the deficiency. This is an utterly indefensible system to maintain, and it only needs to be exposed as it was at the conferference in order to demand a change, one delegate aptly described the principle that should guide the community: "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander," and few will question the truth of this motto, whether it applies to transport or to other more directly trading activities. The Reverse Also True. But it was when dealing with the reverse side of the picture that the conference was illogical, for apparently not a single speaker pointed out, in the discussion on main highways, that "What's sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose." Jf that had been done, it would have been found that all the arguments which were used in support of the remit that the main arterial trunk roads should be nationalised and controlled by the Highways Board —which means that they should be financed by the traffic which uses them — apply with equal force to all the roads, whether main or subsidiary. Until aeroplane transport is more fully developed, we shall have to depend on four systems of transport —railways, trams, steamers and motors. The first three pay for the whole of their expenses, the last one pays only a small fraction, and that is the direct cause of all the' trouble and anxiety of recent years. Take the trams first, and their hopeless competition against buses and private motor cars. An ordinary road is 66ft wide, of which the 10ft footpath on each side is quite a legitimate charge against the local body. The trams construct 18ft in the centre, and pay every penny for what they require, two sets of rails and sleepers, but they also meet the whole expense of constructing and maintaining what they do not require, a good surface for the sole use of the motors which compete against them. The local body pays for the 14ft strip of concrete on each side, towards which the motors, which alone use it, pay a email fraction. The position is absolutely absurd. Tf sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, and the trains pay for the construction and maintenance of what they use, then motors should pay for the 18ft of road surface which the trams now finance, and also the whole of the 2Sft of concrete towards which they now pay only a fraction. It is quite illogical for the concrete to be a charge against the land, when the tram track is not a similar, charge, and the same applies to the side roads, whether concrete, bitumen or .macadam. Nothing ever uses them except motor's,/ even if they are little roads marked "No Exit," but we have : allowed an unfair allocation of cost to creep in, since the introduction of motors, which was quite fair in the old days of horse traffic, then so local as to be almost in the direct ratio of the value of the land which the roads traversad. Railways and steamers are much in the same position, except that they pay no charges whjch correspond with the 18ft of roadway maintained by the trains : for the sole use of their competitors,, and then we say that railways and trams cannot meet modern competition. Of course they can. All that they cannot meet is grossly privileged competition. Obscuring the Position. By all means charge the land with the cost of railways, trams and roads, so long as it is distinctly understood that it is purely a betterment tax, but we are only shutting our eyes to the facts when we charge the land with roads, for motors to use, and omit to relieve railways and trams of this charge, although they have to compete against motors. Viewing- the matter in this light, we have, allowed the position to be quite obscured, in admitting that railways and j trams cannot compete against motors, for. that argument is just as illogical as it. would be for a draper to shut his eyes to the true position of his departments. He could easily make Manchester and haberdashery pay better than clothing, if he' debited all expenses to general charges, instead of correctly charging the importations of the former with duty and the heavy freight, whereas clothing should usually have only the cartage from a factory or mill. . None Should Have Privileges. My reply to "Civil Engineer," who answered my three .previous articles in a well-reasoned claim that _ railways already enjoy a privileged position over motors, is: that I don't want either to have any advantage. Let each pay its own charges, provided that it pays a!l of them, instead of leaving the community to pay part, and then there will be a reasonable chance of finding out which is the more economically sound. It will not be found out at once, for there must first be weeded out the impecunious and unbusinesslike people who are prepared to carry goods at a third, or even a quarter, of the real cost, leaving the ultimate loss to fall on thencreditors, and it is for that reason that I believe it will be. found necessary to insist that all applications for license renewals will have to be accompanied by an audited account of previous ti-acl-irig At present there is far too much evidence of a national asset worth £50,000,000 being jeopardised by reckless competition, which usually leads to bankruptcy. The change I advocate must come some day, and the sooner it comes the better, before it is still harder to bring about.