STILL GOING DOWNHILL

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 143, 14 March 1938, Page 8

STILL GOING DOWNHILL

“The economic life of the country is strewn with the ghastly failures of private enterprise,” declared the Minister of Industries and Commerce and Railways in supporting the socialisation of the iron and steel industry. It was unfortunate for Mr. Sullivan s advocacy of Socialist ownership and management that the State railway returns for the 44 weeks of the current financial year should have been published simultaneously with his speech in Parliament. The figures for the period stated disclose that our State railway earnings under our Socialist Government are going from bad to worse, and the prospect of an increased loss this year and an added burden for taxpayers is only too evident. In the last financial year of office of the preceding Government the net railway earnings were £1,087,491. This was in 1935, and covered a period representing the beginning of better times, lhe actual loss as between interest liability £2,330,886 and net earnings was £1,243,395. Last year, with the Socialist Government in office, the net earnings had dropped to £903,858, representing a loss as against interest charges of £1,405,986. This increased loss, it should be borne in mind, was incurred in more prosperous times, due to the rise in prices for our produce overseas. For the current financial year, which expires at the. end of this month, the net earnings as compared with the corresponding period of last year are already down another £154,000 Nearly two million more passengers were carried on the railways during the 44 weeks under review, and nearly 700,000 more tons of freight; yet in spite of the large increase in gross earnings this represents the net earnings were well down, and the loss to the country well up. No doubt the Minister will tell the country that the increasing loss in working the State railways is due to increased costs.* This is largely the case. It is worth noting in this respect that the bigger the business done by the railways the bigger the loss has been in the past two years; which indicates that the State itself, like many private businesses which have had an increased turnover, finds itself worse off owing to the higher costs. But whatever the reason may be for the heavier losses on our State railways, the fact that cannot be brushed aside is that the public has to make up the deficiency through taxation. On top of the continuing and mounting losses on our existing railways Ihe present Government has gone ahead with its policy of building additional lines which expert inquiry has shown will involve the country in still further losses.