Railway Services.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19970, 3 July 1930, Page 8

Railway Services.

It is so plainly the duty of the Government to effect economies that the proposed curtailment or extinction o£ certain of the railway services to reduce heavy annual losses cannot very well be objected to. The financial position of the railways has been going from bad to worse for at least five years. In 2925-26 there was a small profit of £79,000, in 1920-27 there was a loss of £IOO,OOO, in 1927-28 the- loss increased to £291,000 and in 1928-29 to £433,000. Now, for the financial year recently closed, the loss has reached the alarming total of £1,210,000. These losses, however, with the exception of a sum of £150,000, have not become a charge on the taxpayer, but have been met in the railway accounts out of working capital and reserves; and these resources are now exhausted. For the present financial year the loss on the railways is estimated at £1,250,000, and all of it will have to be met by direct taxation just at a time when the Budget shortage for the year (including railway losses) is likely to be three millions sterling. The necessity for reducing so heavy a lose to the very lowest limits admits of no argument, and if the proposed reductions and extinctions of services may be taken as the first instalment of a plan to confine railway operations to such business as may prove profitable, or at all events not hopelessly unprofitable, everybody ought to be pleased. The uncertain factor is what lies behind this step. Is the Minister anticipating the conclusions of the Railway Commission, or merely helping Mr Forbes to keep bis promise that the railway shortage, to be met out of taxation, will be reduced to an absolute minimum? The minimum, as estimated by the Minister, may not be the minimum recommended by the Commission, but it will give some relief from the taxation expected in the Budget, whereas if nothing had been done until the Commission's report had been presented and considered, the Budget would have had to make full taxation provision for the estimated loss of one and a quarter millions.