THE MIRAMAR TRAMWAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 147, 19 December 1905, Page 2

THE MIRAMAR TRAMWAY.

TO THE EDITOS. Sir,— Your interviewer on the question of the Miramar trains made'ine say that the trams would not pay for twen-ty-one years. What I intended to say, and what I said on the platform at the statutory meeting, was that they could never ,pay under the proposed agreement with the City Council, and if the agreement lasts for twenty-one years the trams will not be paying them. To earn Is Id per car mile, plus interest 6id, leaving aside the question of depreciation altogether, * the cars would have to be always full, and no one has a right to expect this, particularly on a r suburban traffic. The loss which must be faced is minimised to the ratepayers for the first few years by using as an aid to revenue £3000 worth of land— a course which cannot bo defended, but which, the . borough without any apologies proposes to do— but when this spare capital is used difficulties will ensue. The ' proposed arrangement with the Council will have to be radically altered, or the borough go in for its own power, or join Greater Wellington. The advisableness of tho two latter alternatives has not received any consideration so far, but if the Council and ratepayers commit the borough to tho scheme without knowing how the scheme can be worked on a profitable basis, tho district ,niay have later on to take a step -which it would not otherwise have taken. The City Engineer has been quoted as saying the trams will pay. I defy any ono to prove this. He said the receipts were estimated on tho low side, but I think he has more care for his reputation than to say that trams which are going to cost the borough Is 7J,d per car mile aro going to pay when _is city trams can earn only Is per mile. The city trams cost lid, and if Island Bay costs as much that line would pay if it earned lq per mile, but would Island Bay pay if it cost Is 7£d? The increase of population that will follow the trams will not ensure that I the trams will pay unless tho city will reduce tho running charge to about 8d per mile. Will tho city be prepared to do this? We aro asked to trust the Borough Council to inane better terms before the trams arc started. They will get the rails laid and go to the Council and ask for better terms so that tho rails may not rust! As business men, tho Borough Council ought to have come to fixed terms with the city before entering upon an undertaking costing £38,000. Tho running charges on this scheme is a more important matter than the capital outlay, and yet when it wa3 decided to advertise the loan proposals tho Borough Council did not know what the running cost was to be. I was liuighed at by tho Mayor at the first meeting when I told the meeting the cost by the Council would be £3000, and the approximate figures since given by tho Council aro £2800. Some of the Councillors thought they had such a .rood thing on that tho City Council would pay thorn £500 for running rights. How different the real thing is they know now, but having gone so far with tho proposals they feel compelled to see them through. I am not opposed to trams, but to the presont proposals, as no ono knows where he is with regard to these. Each

Councillor and syndicate totals up the cost differently, until a scheme which is advertised to cost £38,000 is going to cost only half that sum and, if some are to be believed, nothing at all. But the ordinary ratepayer cannot follow such subtleties. .He knows that the loan in this case is for £23,000, and 'the ordinary course of local bodies is to come along later on for a " washing-up " loan. This will more than probably be the case with this scheme, as the borough has engaged no engineer to frame estimates, nor has any one of authority been made responsible for the_ figures upon which the Council is working. The borough is young, with a present rating power of £2080 per annum. Property will go up under the trams, and so will rates, and with the demand there I exists for more urgent works of tho nature of road-malring, street-lighting, sanitation, etc., our rates will be very heavy. The trams could have been left to private enterprise, but the proposal of a syndicate to do the work was smothered for some reason. With the trams in the hands of private enterprise the borough could have gone on with necessary works in the district, and now the dangef is that everything raised will go into the maw of the tram scheme. It is not for the borough, prac- i tically without population, to take on the booming of lands and the heavy j risks of this tram scheme, but no one would object to the landowners doing so. — I am, etc., A. E. MABIN. Wellington, 19th December, 1905.