SOUTH AFRICAN RAILWAYS.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 13094, 20 April 1908, Page 7

SOUTH AFRICAN RAILWAYS.

AN EXPERT'S REPORT.

United Pwea Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.

CAPETOWN, April 18. Mr Conacher, an English traffic ex-

pert, has presented all the South African Governments with reports strongly advocating the unification of South Africa- railways, and, if possible, the harbour dues. He considers it would be to the real interest of the inland colonies to be part-era with the coast colonies in all the routes to the sea.

For some time there has been fnction between the South Airican Gover--me-ts on the question oi railway competition. Tne two coastal <» iom «*! and work their own systems, and both ior a number of years nave been zealous competitors for the seaborne traffio to and from the goldfields. But there is another and a formidable rival. Ihe Lorenoo Marques route, mostly traversing Transvaal territory z and to this extent owned and managed by the Transvaal Government, terminates at Delagoa Bay, which is partly on account of tbe distance dubbed the natural port of the 'iTansvaal. lo get a general idea of the difficulty which, railway administrators have hod to contend with in adjusting rates to allot to each system its share of traffic, the distances of the several South African ports from Johannesburg should bo borne in mind. They are: Capetown 1015 miles, Port Elizabeth 715, East London 667 miles, Durban 485 miles, Lorenco -Marques (Delagoa 396. Since 1901 the Delagoa Bay railway has been gradually acquiring a monopoly of the trade, and Natal gets much more then the Cape. The Cape Government has therefore found itself losing ihe trade of the goldfields,. although it made itself the pioneer of railway enterprise fn the Transvaal at enormous expense. In August, 1906. its railways carried only 13 per cent, of the Johannesburg trade,, whereas the Natal railways carried 33 per cent, and Delagoa Bay line 54 per cent. The Cape Government granted rebates, and Natal retaliated by using the same kind of weapon.