The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 1930. A RAILWAY BUDGET.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 198, 22 August 1930, Page 6

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

FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 1930. A RAILWAY BUDGET.

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

On the eve of his departure for England the Prime Minister has presented Parliament with a statement on railway finance which is more startling than anything yet issued on the subject, and that is saying a good deal. The public has known that the railways already show a heavy deficit, and it is now informed that if seven lines under construction are completed the total loss on them will be £737,000 a year. Every one of these lines shows, on the Estimates, an.ultimate loss; only two show a credit balance of revenue over operating expenditure. The operating loss on the aggregate of 345 miles that will be added to the national railway system, if all these lines under construction are completed, ay ill be £50,000, and when interest charges are added the net loss will be £737,000. For budgets of this sort critics of railway policy have been asking for years. Had railway construction been viewed in this light from the beginning, the system would lie in a much better position to-day. It should be noted, first, that the mileage given for the various lines under construction does not represent only actual gaps in the works. It covers all the works that have not been taken over by the Railways Department. Over portions of these "lines under construction" Public Works trains are running. For instance, the length of the portion of the StratfordOngarue line is given as 42 miles, but the actual gap has been reduced to a few miles. This must be borne in mind when the question arises whether any or all of these lines should be completed. The most impressive figures in the return are these, that whereas the average constructional cost of lines already open is £14,109 a mile, the average cost of lines under construction is £ 39,540 a mile, and that the interest charge per mile on the new lines is more than three times greater than the charge on existing lines. It xvas calculated by Mr. Jones, late Chairman of the Railways Board, and his figures have not been refuted, that £20,000 a mile was the limit of economical construction, yet we are building lines at double that cost, aiid at a higher interest rate than in earlier days. Here is the problem in a nutshell. Is the country going to build lines that do not and cannot pay in the commercial sense of the term ? How much is going to be given to the developmental factor as distinct from the factor of direct profit? How far can the country afford to proceed, in the face of over-increasing road competition, with the policy of opening up' country by railways, when on the Department's own showing one such railway may lose as much as £253,000 a year—the figure for the completion of the Oiisborne-Xapier connection? These are questions that must be examined at once with every care, and answered without delay. The country cannot afford to go on drifting.