Our Wellington Letter.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLI, Issue 2210, 29 August 1910, Page 5

Our Wellington Letter.

(Fkom Ouk Own Cukuksponoent.) August 23rd, 1910. Tuesday rose on the certainty of the continuation of the financial debate for days, but the House rose at midnight with the debate over. Members had returned from the Auckland jaunt invigorated with the trip aud much impressed with what they had seen in the Northern City. It is idle to suppose that they were moved by the sight of the agricultural winter show into saying that they had never seen a better. The Show never-the-less appears from the accounts of the men to have been an eye-opener to those who kuow nothing of tlie progress made of late years by the Auckland District. Be that as it may the members returned to' debate in a sensible frame. Hence the end. The Opposition was played out Mr Rhodes alone remaining to vent his oratory and he did not care to tackle Mr Ngata or the independent Luke with leanings, or the vigorous Ell who began life as the smallest inch in the political scale and has grown to be a Financial authority to be respected in all matters connected with land values and taxation, especially customs taxation and its effects on the people who have to take that medicine and are privileged to growl after the manner of tiiose who dwell in the country. The Railways statement came as the sensation 'next in importance being at least another of the land marks of the Session. Time was when the Minister of Railways got up in his place and read the document. That was when big millions were to the fore and trunk lines and their routes were in question, and the business of Parliament consisted in the rolling of logs. But to-day we take our gruel lying down. The statement is now placed on the table almost surreptitiously, and nearly secretly. So that the journalist may be taken by surprise if he is not on the lookout. This one conveyed the pleasing intelligence that the Railways have for the first time in our history paid all interest charges aud a little something over. There were critics in the lobby who seemed disposed to regard this fact as doubtful, for they declared that the expenditure on the open lines had been charged to capital account. But when a line buys new waggons and new locomotives and new tarpaulins for ucav traffic not to take the place of old things worn out, it is alright to the ordinary mind not given to prejudice to think that the right course is to regard the expenditure as one of capital. Besides a little examination reveals the fact that for repairs and replacements of old rolling stock the revenue paid a charge of £103,000. So we may lake the credit for railways that they have at last paid their interest. As to the management it is of course certain that the concess- :• ions of late years in the tariff have been very great ammountiug to something like £BOO,OOO, if the Financial Statement is to be regarded as an authority. Also it is certain that Ihc wages of 12,000 railway men at ten shillings a week more than the Australian rates come to £300,000 less in the year than they would if arranged on the Australian level. It is clear also that we pay for maintenance far more —-£1(5 per mile—than they do in Victoria where the highest rate of maintenance is paid in Australia, viz : £lßl against our £2:30 : the aggregate being £IOO,OOO more than theirs ou tfte same length of line. Under the circumstances it is easy to criticise by comparison, but the whoop that because the New South Wales line scoop in £338,000 a year for the Treasury and after paying the interest on cost of construction is like the bark of the dog that got near the wrong tree. On the other hand whether our lines are managed as well as they ought to be is another thing. Parliamentarians differ very much on the point. Anyhow we are glad and so are Parliament that the lines are none- the worse after paying the interest on their cost. One of the greatest comforts to the North Island is that the North Trunk and branches have paid just four pounds four shillings per cent, just ten shillings more than the interest charge, while the Southern Trunk and branches have paid just teii shillings less, so that the cost of the two systems being each about twelve and a half millions—the North pays the loss of the South. But it is right to remember and fair men do remember it, that the South for many years carried the North on its back. ' Moreover the Otago Central did not pay axle grease and that line bulks for over a million in the Southern list. The way to put it then is, not that the North pays for the South, but that both North and South pay for the Otago Central. The surprise of the accounts is the showing of the Westland system which works out a percentage of three pounds seven. This is the old Midland railway and the line from Greymouth to Hokitika and Ross. When the tunnel is through to the Canterbury side the Southern aud Western men declare that there will be a surprising development, On the other hand you will hear in the lobbies that the shipping companies .will carrry coal at cut throat rates and kill the railway profits utterly. We can leave it to Father Time, l'hc moral of (he account is the tremendous profit of the small railways of Wcstport and Whangarei. These" paid respectively £1.3 Us Od (Westport) and £9 10s Od (Whangarei). These lines carry a heavy mineral trailic and the trains run ofteu and always as full as they can hold. That is the secret of railway management say the railway men. When the country produces what it ought to, and the railways have been completed as far as they ought to be, there may be surprising developments. The chairmanship of committee docs not exactly go a-begging but if may be described mildly as not yot settled. When it will be settled it will be settled. Most men expect it will be Tuesday, but | there may be much fighting. Mr Colvin is the Government nominee, as Mr Davey has become impossible on account of the little episode of the Police Inspector, who it is said, will lose his chance of pension for which he was just about qualifying when the Davey blow got him. Mr Colvin was some years whip of the Government papty, having succeeded " Charlie" Mills in that post, He is a mild strong man, who is not likely to be worried by the wags of the House, but is certain to be bored by his duties. The Legislative Council stands where it did. Mr Russell has not succeeded in getting his Bill for the abolition of the chamber of antiquities through the committee stage, Therp was a mi Id sort of stone-wall against Mr Sidey's Public Hculth Bill for the purpose of blocking

the Russell measure. But the House did not want to be rough ou Sidey so had to give Russell a chance. It played with him as a eat plays with a mouse, reporting progress without doing anything but debate an amendment. Mr Sidey's Bill came in' for a good deal of hard hitting and deserved the same, for a more drastic Russian sort of knock-me-down measure one never could dream of even after eating plum pudding for supper. Your Municipal Lord and Master will have nothing but order you to pull down your house if he thinks it in any way insanitary, and if you refuse he lias only to order the nearest magistrate to scud you a mandate, and there you arc. Good old Mr Buddo said a few words for the sake of the loyal supporter, who drew up the Bill for the glorification of the Municipal magnate, but he took good care to show that his sympathy could uot extend be3'ond second reading. The end of the week saw the long promised measure for the extinguishment of the public debt in seventy-five years and the proposal to try and put the taper on the borrowing practice with the idea of ending it by a certain definite date. This meets with approval generally for principle, all the members one meets talking virtuously against our system of " Micaw"berism " don't you know. The proposa 1 will pass but it will be vastly scrutinized.