The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY, MARCH 17, 1930. THE NORTHERN RAILWAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 64, 17 March 1930, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

MONDAY, MARCH 17, 1930. THE NORTHERN RAILWAY.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

The report on the abandonment of the Morningside Tunnel scheme, prepared by a committee set tip by a meeting of representatives of the districts affected, is an important document. It may not outweigh the Minister's case, but it makes some valuable points, and gives him something to reply to. The report challenges the Minister's decision in two main respects. It questions whether the tunnel will cost as much as his estimate, and it contends that the saving will be greater than he believes. The chief weakness in Mr. Taverner's statement seemed to be that it loaded the scheme with electrification over too wide an area. This local report maintains that in any case the trend of railway operating practice demands electrification some day of the whole of the suburban system.

The challenge delivered on the Minister's figures for traffic and the financial results of this proposed line will no doubt be answered in detail. The committee is not impressed by the Minister's contention that a shuttle service between Newmarket and Morningside would still be necessary. The most interesting question of all, however, is whether the Minister has overestimated the actual cost of the tunnel. Six years ago the General Manager and the Chief Engineer estimated the cost of the tunnel at £449,000. Mr. Taverner says that " the constructional costs of the tunnel, deviation, and underground stations would be approximately a million," and he adds that this estimate might be exceeded. In answer to a communication from the committee, he says that the estimate of 1924, £449,000, was " purely tentative, and was prepared without any detailed surveys or investigation of the proposed route." But in the 1924 documents, apparently, nothing is said about the estimate being tentative. In two places the cost is stated without reservation. If the explanation is that a fuller investigation was made by Departmental officers recently, surely the public has a right to complain about hopes being raised on unsatisfactory foundations. .If the cost would be so much higher, why was not this found out long ago? Engineers in private practice would be glad to be allowed so wide a margin as this in their estimating. Or is the explanation, in whole or in part, that the plans have been extended in the meantime? What effect on the total cost has the Minister's three underground stations?

These are questions that the public is entitled to ask. Mr. Taverner took the only right course in ordering an investigation of the scheme in all its aspects by his Departmental officers, and it would be inconsistent for critics of railway policy to urge this, procedure on the Government in principle and then refuse to give any particular finding its due weight. The criticisms of the local committee should assist the community in obtaining all the truth and making right deductions from them. Already the Minister has promised to furnish passenger statistics that he might well have included in his main statement. His reply to this report will be awaited with keen interest. It can hardly be contended seriously that the country can afford to spend over two millions on this one railway improvement. Two questions may reasonably be asked. Can the tunnel scheme be carried out for much less than this, and, if not, what is the Government's alternative? Does it propose to leave!the northern railway outlet as it is? THE FISCAL PROBLEM. The Tariff Conference is still in session at Geneva, but it has been evident for some time past that the delegates are not likely .to come to any definite or unanimous conclusion in regard to the declared purpose of the Conference. As Mr. Graham told the House of Commons a fortnight ago, the object of the Conference was not to stabilise tariffs for a given period at their present level but to check their upward movement, and ultimately to prepare for their reduction. But even these limited aims apparently transcend both the powers and the wishes of the States concerned, and for some weeks past even the most enthusiastic promoters of the Conference have been endeavouring to reconcile themselves tp the prospect of its failure.

For, naturally enough, though practically every Protectionist-country has some specific complaints to make " about its neighbours' tariffs, no Government and no nation on the Continent is prepared to destroy the defences that it has laboriously built up to shield its own producers from foreign competition. In other words, apart from Britain, practically all countries are still convinced that Protection, in spite of certain defects and disadvantages, is the best fiscal policy to maintain, and when, three weeks ago, France declared through her principal delegate that she would not sign a tariff truce she gave a lead to the other Continental Powers that they have not been slow to follow.

As Briton was chiefly responsible for convoking this congress, our President of the Board of Trade has had all along a special interest in its success. But Mr. Graham i-i, of course, well aware that other Euiopean countries are prejudiced against Free Tiadtt, and he knows also that it would be impossible to induce the Dominions to surrender Protection. Evidently these hard facts have produced a profound impression on him, for he has just told the Tariff Conference that, though still a believer in fhe theory of Free Trade, he would be prepared to recommend Protection even in Britain if he were convinced that it would prove a remedy against falling prices and industrial - depression. This is indeed a remarkable admission for the representative of a Free Trade Government to make, and it emphasises most significantly the difficulties that confront the policy of " free imports " in a world of Protectionists. j