STATE-OWNED TRAFFIC SYSTEMS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 76, 31 March 1914, Page 6

STATE-OWNED TRAFFIC SYSTEMS

An important contributory cause to the financial deficit in New South Wales is the fall that has taken place, since the Labour Government took office, in the profits of the great traffic businesses of the State. In 1910-11, the surplus on the State-owned railways was £582,000, and on the State-owned tramways (comprising Sydney and some lesser urban and suburban systems), £64,000. In 1912-13, the surplus on the railways was reduced to £27,000, and the tramways showed a deficit of £3000; and the year 1913-14 is shaping for large deficits on both services unless increased fares and freights save the situation. On the railways the rates have been advanced executively, in order to avoid the deficiency ; and a proposal to raise the tramway fares, to take effect from 31st March, was being debated in the NNeew c South Wales Assembly when the last mail left. In ,his Budget Speech, the Premier and Treasurer made a very significant reference to this disappearance of the surpluses on the business undertakings of the State. He said that the preceding Liberal Government (Mr. Wade's) had profited by "the large surplus t from business undertakings, which their policy enabled them to" transfer bodily to the Governmental revenue account, whereas the present Government used these for the improvement of the wages and conditions of the workers employed in those enterprises, rather than for purposes of relieving revenue.'^ Mr. Holman also stated that a considerable factor in the loss of profit on the business Undertakings was increased wages. The question which is raised by Mr. Holman's words, and by the further proposals of the Government for meeting the situation, goes to the root of the principle of State ownership of public utilities. For whom does the Government, as owner of the tramways, act as trustee? Firstly, for the whole people j secondly, for the users' of the tramways; thirdly, for tho man who work the tramways. Clearly the Government—or the local body where tramways are municipally-owned — should hold the balance between the proprietorpeople, the travelling public, and the tramwaymen ; and on the correctness of that balance the whole success of State ownership depends. In the case of the New South Wales tramways, the question whether the State is entitled to take from them large sums annually in aid of revenue has, at any rate -for the time being, ceased jLo exist. The quarrel is not who shall have the surplus, but who shall shoulder the loss ; and the Government's effort to put the burden on the users of the tramways, by an increase in" a portion of the fares, has met with considerable opposition from some Labour organisations. Assuming that the system is not being extravagantly administered, the ; deficit should certainly fall upon the users, and not upon the whole of the people, who have surely done enough when they carry the loan-liability for a public utility which perhaps they themselves have never seen. If among tho tramway passengers there are workers who feel the weight of the new impost, it should remind them that every increase has got to be paid for by someone. Whatever the incidence of the new fares may be, it is in the true interest of State ownership that the Government should make the service pay its own way, and that the users should find the money, provided that the tramwaymen are not being paid more than a just remuneration. But the disappearance within two years —prosperous ones at that!— of a £64,000 surplus on the tramways, and over half a million on the railways, is sufficiently ominous.

The Post's Dunedin correspondent telegraphs : —Mr. Belcher proceeded to Wellington this morning to give evidence in the case being brought by the Wellington branch of the Australasian Federated Seamen's Union, in which the Supreme Court is being asked for a declaratory judgment on the ground of a sectional vote being taken tor the election of tho secretary of the Dunedin branch, instead of a national vote.