RAILWAY FINANCES.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1072, 10 March 1911, Page 4

RAILWAY FINANCES.

The Gazette contained last night, in the shape of the figures relative to the working of the railways up to February 4 last, its usual monthly reminder of the folly and injustice of the Government's railway policy. The figures for the four weeks ending February 4 arc very similar to the figures for tho corresponding period of last year. Wc give the net revenue for tho four weeks from the North Island and South Island lines in both years in tabular form: Net Revenue. 1010, 1911. £ £ North 53,534 53.GG7 South 50,852 49,082 The greater revenue from the Northern lines was furnished by only 1150 miles of lino as compared with the ICO3 miles in the Southern system. The figures for the whole 44 weeks ended February 4 are as follow : Net revenue. Increase. 1909-10. 1910.-11. ' per £ £ £ cent. North 410,410 518,159 107,713 20.2 South 427,888 . 408,539 40,051 9.5 Not only, therefore, does the smaller Northern system yield an absolutely greater return than the Southern system—the net earnings per mile of lino in this island arc roughly 50 per cent greater than the net earnings per mile in the South—but the very rate of increase of yield is nearly three times as great as ifc is in the South. Properly to understand what is happening, and the extent of the burden that the users of the Northern system have to bear on behalf of the users of tho Southern system, it is necessary to compare the net revenue with the interest charges. The capital cost of the opened and unopened lines in the North was on March 31 last £13,655,054, and the interest on this for a year at 3J per cent is £512,064. The figures in the case of tho South are £16,499,404 and £618,731 respectively. Wc thus get the following actual results: Net revenue. Interest for Profit or for li weeks. 44 weeks. loss. £ £ £ North MS.I.W 433,281 54.875 profit. South 408,539 523,510 55,001 loss, • What tho result will be at the end of the year is now plainly visible. There I will be a heavy profit from the Northern lines and a heavy loss on the Southern lines. During the final eight weeks of the year 1909-10 the net revenue from the North was £136,121 and from the South £105,860. If the same results were recorded for the 8 weeks from February 5 to the end of the current financial year, tho net revenue would be a3 follows: Northern system, £654,280; Southern system, £578,399. We should then have this result: Net revenue. Interest. Profit or loss. North 054,280 512,004 142,510 profit. South 575.390 018,731 40,332 loss. The return on capital (opened and unopened lines) would be 4.8 per cent in the case of the North and 3.5 per cent in the case of the South. Mr. Millar was complaining the other day that comparisons like these arc unpatriotic, as tending to set one island against the other. If he has no other answer than that to the. figures, he would be wiser to say nothing at all. It should be patent to everybody, including Mr. Millar, that, quite apart from the injustice of exploiting the North Island rail-way-users for the benefit of the South Island, it is the height of folly to treat the South Island, already over-railed, as being as good an investment for further railway construction as is the North Island. What we have always contended is that the country as a whole, South as well as North, would profit from the sensible and businesslike policy that the Government so obstinately refuses to follow. If Mr. Millar replies that this is an absurd contention, and that the South profits only from what is spent in the South, he will compel us to ask him why, in that case, his Government persists in pillaging the North Island. In any event, in view of the frequent statements by himself and his chief that ho does not wish to grind profits flora the railwavs, what has the Minister to say of his refusal so to regulate the rates as to return to the railway-users of the North Island the largo sums that tho Northern lines yield over and above the interest? How can the Mini-stor expect any confidence to be placed in his bona when ho speaks of the Australian railways as wicked profitgrinding concerns, despite the fact that he maintains such rates as extract an even greater percentage of profit from the people of the North Island? Of course he cannot hand back the Northern surplus to. the people who supply it, because ho has to make a present of it, in cheaper rates and in ampler services, to ib" people in the South.