OUR RAILWAYS : PUBLIC APATHY.

Evening Post, Volume LXVI, Issue 20, 23 July 1903, Page 6

OUR RAILWAYS : PUBLIC APATHY.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — More than six weeks have now elapsed since the publication of my pamphlet, "The True Position of our New Zealand Railways Investment." Of this pamphlet I have distributed over 600 copies. They have been sent to every member of the Legislature, to the press, in and out of New Zealand, to Chambers of Commerce, Farmers' Unions, and numerous private and well-known citizens. Never before ha.ye I brought such a terrible charge of mismanagement, xor worse, against any Government as that now brought against our present administrators, and yet nothing that I have ever published ha» apparently excited so little attention/ . I liave shown — and, I think, clearly proved — that duriug the last six years (1897 to 1902, inclusive) we have lost by our railways no less than £2,872,883, and of this amount £387,495 was lost in 1900, £493,344 in I°9l, and £1,007,095 in 1902, or £1,887,934 in three years. Yes, one million , eight hundred and eighty-eight thousand pounds lost during the :;..«t three years*, and yet nev«i' before has there beea £uch .loud boast -^

ing about "successful administration" and "phenomenal results" achieved by our railways. Let the New Zealand public remember that thejic.vast sums have been paid out of loans and taxation, and not out of railway earnings, as they ought to, and might have been, and that this evil process is still going on. Does the community imagine that it can go on for ever? Is it nobody's business but mine? I can only account for the indifference shown by supposing that my etatements are so astounding that nobody believes them to be true; people think that I am mistaken, but on pages 7, 8, and 9 of the pamphlet in question I have shown that the editor uf The Times of London, the manager ol the Delaware, Lacawanna, and Western Railway of America, the manager of the North-Western of England, "Fishplate," of Wellington, and Mr. Rous-Marten, of London, all support me in my contention as to how the railway account should be taken, which is simply as it was always taken in this country prior to the appointment of the Railway Commissioners. Since my pamphlet was in type the May number of the Bankers' Magazine has come to hand. An article in it shows the managers of the South-Eastern Company of England, the Great Northern Company of Ireland, the London and North-Western, and Midlands railways of England all take the ea'me view, us also do the editors of the Investors' Review and the Liberty Review. I ask, Are all these well-known authorities likely to be -wrong and men like our railway managers and Mr. George Fowlds likely to be right? Of this we may make sure, that if our railway administrators had been able to prove me to be in the wrong they would long since have done so, for what I say on the railway question is now largely made use of in England. — I am, etc., SAMUEL VAILE. Auckland, 14th July, 1903.