FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1881.

Evening Post, Volume XXI, Issue 40, 18 February 1881, Page 2

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1881.

THE RAILWAY EEVENUE. ♦ As the financial year 1880-1 draws towards its close, the four-weekly returns of railway revenue and expenditure must necessarily be watched with constantly-increasing interest. The public prosperity of this colony depends in a very large degree on the success or failure of our railways, in which we have invested both our capital and our credit to so vast an extent. We have spent, in round numbers, about ten millions in the construction of railways in this colony, and we hare to pay away nearly half a million yearly in the shape of interest. It is natural, there* fore, that the railway returns should be anxiously looked for, and eagerly scanned when they appear in the pages of the Gazette. The last return is jnst issued and proves to be of a very satisfactory nature, The total receipts have increased from £62,107 in the preceding month to .£68,912, while the expenditure has decreased from £37,482 to .£35,315, the latter representing only 64 per cent, of the receipts instead of 66. This is a very distinct improvement in both directions, and if we can only manage to make our railway income continue to increase while the expenditure diminishes, the effect on the colonial revenues will be' highly favorable. The total receipts fiom the railway during the current financial year up to the Bth ult. have been .£624,210, or at the average rate of about .£15,600 per week. Supposing only that rate to be maintained during the twelve weeks intervening between Bth January and 31st March, the year's railway revenue would amount to £811,470. But it must be remembered that the months of February and March are always particularly profitable periods in our railway work, and it is therefore not unreasonable to assume that the report of the last four-weekly period may rather be taken as a grade. If so, it makes the prospect a muoh better one. The last return is £68,942 for four weeks, and if the following twelve weeks yield only at the same rate, it will bring the revenue up to £830,000. It is practically certain.-however, that there will be a much larger return during this month and next, therefore we cannot be very far wrong in estimating the total gross revenue produced by the New Zealand railways during the present financial year at £850,000. That would be just £100,000 under the Colonial Treasurer's estimate ; but, on the other hand, we have a largely diminished expenditure. This has now been brought down to 64 per cent, for the whole colony, including all the "political" lines and unremunerative branches, thus leaving 36 per cent, net profit available toward payment of interest and cost of construction. If we are correct in assuming that the per centage of working expenses will remain at 61 then the net profit will amount to about £306,000, but if the proportionate expenditure continues to be reduced as it has been during the last few months there seems no reason why the net revenue from our railways should not reach £325,000, which would pay 3£ per cent, interest on cost of construction, or 5 per cent, on six-and-a-half millions out of the total ten millions. This appears to us a most encouraging state of affairs, and one which well may inspire the brightest hopes for the future of the Colony. If at a time when New Zealand is but slowly recovering from a period of unexampled depression, with more railway mileage in proportion to population than any other country in the world, we can nevertheless show a profit of 3£ per cent, on our working railways, what may not be expected when the tide of prosperity once more sets in, as it inevitably will, toward our shores ? We have always maintained that our railways, so far from being the disastrous failure they were commonly and ignorantly supposed to be, were in reality a success beyond anything that could reasonably have been anticipated under all the circumstances. We believe that the time is not far distant when the New Zealand railways will not only pay every penny of interest on their cost, but also a handsome sinking-fund, and that ere many years have passed they will form one of the most valuable and profitable sources of our colonial revenue. But it must never be forgotten that mere revenue-production is not and never was the sole end and aim of our railways. Their great and primary aim was and must be the opening and settlement of the country, in facilitating which they will do tenfold the service indirectly that they can ever do directly by contributions to the revenue.The colonists of New Zealand are reasonably warranted, however, in indulging in much self-congratulation that the 1250 miles of railway, for which so much has been sacrificed, so heavy a burden of interest and consequent taxation temporarily incurred, and •both the estate and the credit of the Colony' ao heavily mortgaged, are now in a fair way to prove not only the powerful aid to settlement and civilisation, which was the chief object of their initiation, but also a distinctly remunerative and even lucrative investment of capital.