AN INCAUTIOUS PRIME MINISTER

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 286, 27 August 1908, Page 6

AN INCAUTIOUS PRIME MINISTER

The Prime Minister displayed less than his usual wariness when in the House on Tuesday afternoon he referred to the controversy between Professor Le Rossignol and. himself regarding the financial conditions of our railways. He appears to have read with great glee an extract from what seems .to have been described as a private letter from Professor Le Rossignol, in which the writer admitted having made a trifling, error ,in his original criticism in, an American magazine a year ago. The extract which he read, by the way, as reported in the Prime Minister's own newspaper, is word for word identical with a passage in an article which tho recently contributed to tho New Zealand Ilcrald. Sir Joseph Ward, in reading his extract, declared that " though, in his Auckland speech, lie had mentioned this letter, admitting, the mistake, neither the Opposition nor the Opposition Press, which had made use of the criticism, had published the error." AVe 'do not know, by the way, how the Prime Minister could have mentioned the letter in his Auckland speech, since it had not then been written. If he will turn to The Dominion of July 7 last, or to the Christchui'ch Press of July 13, he will find, reprinted from the New Zealand Herald, the whole of Professor Le liossionol's article, including his reference to his error. If he will look back further still, he will find, in an editorial in The Dominion on' February 18 last, that we noted and admitted the Professor's miscalculation. In these circumstances, Sir Joseph Ward will doubtless be glad to apologiso for his charge of dishonesty against " the Opposition and the Opposition Press."

Now for the Professor's error. Knowing the Prime Minister's ways, we may confidently expect that in the election campaign he will read parts of the Professor's frank admission of a trifling miscalculation and leave his hearers to believe that the American critic has been ignominiously routed. It may be as well to print again what Professor Le Rossignol's error amounted to, and to indicate what, when the error is allowed for, still remains of his contention. In his original article he took a long series of years, and analysed tho railways balancesheet,. stating each year's results as they would appear under a. proper system of book-keeping. In doing so, he made a small mistake, fractionally modifying his figures, but in no way vitiating his conclusions. What he did is best explained in his own admission of his mistake:

Sir Joseph Ward) in his criticism of an article by me in the August issue of "Moody's Magazine," very properly calls attention to the fact that, when I deducted tho amount of expenditure for additions to open lines from the ' net earnings,, I ought to have deducted the same amount from capital, in order to show the true percentage of net earnings and the true amount of the annual defioit. The expenditure for additions to open lines for the ten years ending in 1006 amounted to £3,122,478, and, when this amount is deducted from capital, the capital c6st of opened and unopened lines appears as £21,969,607, instead of £24,092,085, and the net revenue, according to my way of reckoning, should bo 1.79 per cent., instead of 1.66 per cent., as I had it. The difference is not great, amounting to only £55,808 for the year 1905-1906, but I regret that tho mistake occurred, for I dp not iutend to misrepresent facts, nor do I wish to pose as an unfriendly critic of New Zealand institutions.

All that the Professor did, that is to say, was to under-estimate by .23 per cent, the net revenue. Seeing that the interest on railway loans is at least 3.75 per cent., it matters little to the critic's argument whether the revenue available to meet iff is only 1.56 or only 1.79 per cent. In other words, the loss on the railways during the year 1905-6 (the year chiefly dealt with by Professor Le Kossignol, as it was the latest for which he had figures) was not the sum of £528,013, as the Professor contended, but the sum of £472,205. The Prime Minister can take all the satisfaction he can extract from that fact. We should hardly consider it a subject for exultation, as wo hope somebody will remind Sir Joseph when next he quotes Professor Le Kossignol's trivial miscalculation as proof of the soundness of the railways. The difference between the two sets of figures' is the difference between the insolvency of a man who can only pay sixpence in the pound and that of a man who can pay scvcnpence. Sib Joseph would have been wiser to leave sleeping dogs undisturbed.