MORE REVENUE, LESS PROFIT

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 110, 12 May 1939, Page 6

MORE REVENUE, LESS PROFIT

The Labour Government has bad charge of the railway system for three full financial years. In each successive year the revenue has risen, until last year it was higher than in any of the thirteen preceding years. In each successive year, also, the expenditure has risen, until last year it, too, topped the peaka of the past. Compared with 1035-36 (in which financial year the Government abolished the Railways Board), revenue has increased by £2,341,072, expenditure by £2,691,485. In the earlier year the net revenue was £1,051,477; last year it was only £701,064. Interest charges exceed £2,330,000, and, as in every other year, the taxpayer meets the shortage. In the depression years it was unavoidable that that shortage should be large, but last year and the previous year, when the shortage was greater, were years of prosperity! The drift appears to have been checked by the recent increases in freights and fares, but it is by no means certain that unfavourable economic factors will not in the current year reduce the total volume of traffic, The latest return cannot but be regarded as a very bad advertisement for State management. If, in a very good year, the net revenue result Ls so unimpressive, what can be expected in a bad year?