MR REID'S NEWFOUNDLAND CONTRACTS.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10267, 9 February 1899, Page 5

MR REID'S NEWFOUNDLAND CONTRACTS.

The cable message stating that Mr Chamberlain had refused to ratify the Newfoundland railway contracts entered into with Mr Reid now proves to bo incorrect. English papers show that Mr Chamberlain has declined to interfere with the contract,, and has rejected the colonial petitions asking him to disallow the same. Mr Reid, who is a large contractor, built the Newfoundland railway, which has now a length" of 650 miles. After its construction he entered into an agreement with the Government to work the whole railway at his own expense for a term of fifty years, as from 1893, }>aying therefore 1,000,000 dols. cash to Mc Government, and receiving a subsidy from the Government of 2500 acres of land per mile. At the end of the term of fifty years, and on the payment of a further 6.000,000 dole., the railway is to become his own property. The land granted to him included large coal areas,, which he bound himself ,to work, mining not less than 50,000 tons a, year, and paying to the Government a royalty of 10 cents a ton; also palp and lumber mills, and copper and other minerals. For the next five years, according to the most eanguino estimate, the railway must be run at a loss, but when the countrY is opened up the profits should be large. It is very dou>ful whether the Newfoundland Government would ever have had the capital or energy to enter on the large scheme on which'Mr Reid and bis two sons have embarked.