A CLEAR-CUT ISSUE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 122, 28 May 1929, Page 8

A CLEAR-CUT ISSUE

Writing in these columns on Saturday concerning the remarkable change in railway construction ideas, we summed up in the following words the need for more light on an unnecessarily obscure situation: — The somersault in railway-building policy in a few short months has been so remarkable that public opinion is confused, and needs all the education that the authors of the policy can find time to impart. This comment, and similar comments for weeks past, have been

written with a knowledge that there are figures, expertly prepared, which, if correct, completely negative any hope that the South Island Main Trunk railway, or the Buller Gor^e line, or indeed any other line now In contemplation, can possibly pay. But the circumstances were such that the figures could not be published or made use of. The whole issue is however, now opened up to public discussion by a published statement on the authority of the former chairman of the Railways Board (Mr. F. J. Jones), which lifts the veil over the expert view sufficiently to constitute a direct challenge to the Prime Minister. Mr. Jones's figures and the Prime Minister's forecast that the South Island Main Trunk will pay cannot both be right; worse than that, if one is right the other necessarily becomes absurd.

Mr. Jones says that if the unfinished eighty miles (Wharanui-Parnassus) in the S.I.M.T. is constructed, the cost will "be about £32,000 a mile, interest charges per mile £1600, working expenses per mile £600, revenue per mile £400. The above puts in a nutshell the expert case against. Can Sir Joseph Ward meet these figures? Mr. Jones says in effect that the gap between railway charges to users and motor charges to users is small in comparison to the gap indicated above (£1750 a mile!)* between the costs and the earnings of this eighty miles stretch of railway under discussion. If the Government builds the line and works it at a loss of £1750 a mile, or £140,000 per annum, for the eighty miles, and charges present railway rates, the' user will be charged £33,----600 a year for the railway service, which is £36,000 a year less than he would be charged for motor service; therefore it would pay the Government to subsidise the motor services to the extent of £36,000 to secure for the user railway rates, and abstain from building eighty miles of railway that would lose every year at least £140,000. These figures are concise. They are totally incompatible with Sir Joseph Ward's statement. Are they correct? No doubt the Prime Minister will take notice of the sweeping statement of the lately retired head of the railways.