FARMERS AND RAILWAYS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 121, 24 May 1932, Page 6

FARMERS AND RAILWAYS.

HAVING IT BOTH WAYS. (To the Eclitor.) It is difficult to understand the mentality of the Auckland Farmers' Union delegates who last week condemned the Railways Board for su&pending work on certain lines, and passed a resolution calling on Parliament to resume control of the railways. These delegates should know that £7,000,000 of public money has been spent on the part construction of six railway lines, which, according to the inaucural report of the board (And the figures have not been disputed), would cost £13,000,000 to complete, and if competed at that terrific cost the board hae shown beyond doubt that they would not earn enough to pay working expenses, let alone interest on the £13,000,000. Seven million pounds wasted, leav ing the tax* payer to find the interest for all time, and vet the "intelligentsia" of the farming community urges that the waste be continued! One can hardly wonder at the desperate financial position in which we find ourselves to-day. Until motor competition is limited and the farmers learn to patronise the railways in preference to motor and shipping companies, Hie railways can never pay. On the one hand, we have the perennial demand from the farmers for lower freights and better services, although no other country makes greater railway concessions to its primary producers at the expense of the general taxpayer, and on the other hand, such examples as the East Coast line, where a loss of £153,000 a year is bcin" made chiefly because farmers are withholdTng their business. Yet delegates nave the audacity to ask other taxpayers, who get no concessions, to continue to make up the loss. The freeing of our railway administration from political control was the soundest thing done by the United party, and for thin it deserves the best thanks of every intelligent and responsible citizen. Before demanding that other lines be constructed, the formers should do more to make existing lines pay. Since the Auckland branch of the Farmers' Union brought the Country party into existence are we to understand that that party supports the resolution? T. fe. HLCIvEY.