The Railways.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18070, 12 May 1924, Page 8

The Railways.

The current issue of the "Gazette" contains an abstract of the revenue and expenditure of the railways for the year ended March 31st last. In comparison with other years the results are not bad. The revenue, £6,984,210, Was £256,000 more tfian in 1922-23, and it did not include any Easter holiday traffic, as the preceding year did. The expenditure actually fell from £5,502,496 to £5/403,765. Tho net balance for the year Was £1,580,445, or sufficient to pay 3| pet cent on the capital invested in Open lines and to leave about £30,000 in hand. As we hav6 Said, this is a much better result than was recorded iA most previous years, and better than in any year, (with, we believe, only one

exception) under the Liberal Administration. But it is far from being a really satisfactory result. In addition to the 41 millions Sunk iri opened lines, about 7 millions has been stink in lines not yet opened, and the railways Cannot be admitted to be a paying concern according to ordinary business standards unless the interest on the not-yct-productive capital invested is also provided for. If account is taken of this point, the railways must be looked upon as having been a moneylosing concern for decades. The accumulated losses under the Liberal Administration amount to an enormous sum of money, and the losses have continued since 1912. It is mainly, if not entirely, due to the unsound principles of the Liberal Administrations that the railways are in their present : unsatisfactory condition. Those Administrations did not require the railway management to produce good results; on the Contrary, the Liberals told the Department that it Would be sufficient if it darned 3 per cent, on the invested capital, and the Department was thus left with flo incentive to apply brains and industry to its' job. The present Government has, to be sure, set the Department a somewhat higher standard of results to aim at, but contentment with a percentage on Capital insufficient to pay the interest is as Unsound and undesirable to-day as it Was under the Liberal regime. It is a great pity thai the Liberal newspapers which now condemn the Government for not making the railways pay were the stoutest dofenders, when the Liberal Party was in office, of the policy of losing money. We do not take any special credit ourselves tot havlhg-fflaintaifled aii uiiwavering lino without thinking of what Government is in office, but Wa cannot help regretting that the Liberals, When their friends were in power, Were too much concerned for their party to join those of us who then, as now, Wero fighting for tho national interest. Had they doio so, the railways could have been put on a paying basis 25 years ago.

The details of the accounts do not call for extensive comment. At a lntor date, no doubt, we shall be furnished with particulars of the revenue and expenditure on tho Midland branch, but in the meantime it may be noted that the revenue on the Westland section for the last month of the year was just half as large again as it Was in 1923 £20,838 as against £18,986. In most other particulars the figures are such as to call for no special notice, and it is not necessary to do more at present thaii call attention to the fact that the burdening of the system with-the extra three-quarters of a million demanded by the A.S.R.S. is quite out of the question.