KAITANGATA-STIRLING COAL TRAFFIC.

Evening Star, Issue 7497, 16 April 1888, Page 3

KAITANGATA-STIRLING COAL TRAFFIC.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sib,— Having broken ground on the question of coal traffic on the Kaitangata-Stirling road, I may perhaps be permitted to add a few words of suggestion towards its solution in a way more or less satisfactory to all the parties concerned. It is quite clear a prohibitory toll would neither satisfy the public nor settle the dispute. Toll-gates have everywhere gone out of date. At all events, a toll-gate can only he justified when the traffic is sufficiently large to bring the cost of collection within a reasonable percentage of the tolls taken. A toll-gate which would support its keeper and little more, as the one proposed, is now altogether discredited and condemned, No revenue to maintain a road to be got in that way. There is even something more to be said. While not disputing the power of the Bruce County Council to erect toll-gates, if its members should think it necessary, I have a strong conviction (speaking, of course, under correction) that anything in the nature of a toll, regarded as prohibitory, would be found illegal, and its defence and defeat could only lead to a useless expenditure of the settlers’ money. The best way, as it appears to me, of settling the present question and a number of other questions which are sure to arise as time moves on (for a large area the country about Kaitangata is coal-bearing), would be for the Government to take over the Kaitangata Coal Company’s railway line, and thus afford all parties the necessary facilities for carrying on and extending their traffic. A petition from the residents of the district, and the aid of the active member for Clutha, should be enough to ensure so desirable a public object, inasmuch as the purchase of this little line would not he like that of the most of those private and political lines which have been already acquired by the Government. Tho Kaitangata railway would be one of the best paying lines in the colony, as may be learned from the fact that last year the company carried over it no less than 52,307 tons of coal, which, at 2s 6d a ton (the rate sought to be charged from their rival) amounts to Lb,o3B—a thumping dividend upon the capital invested, irrespective of all other kinds of traffic, which, if properly cultivated, should be very considerable. Of course 2s Gd a ton for five miles of carriage is outrageous, but reduce it to a reasonable rate and you have still a magnificent return. The settlers should turn their immediate attention to the subject. It is a check upon all industrial progress to have tho traffic of the district dominated by a company which conceives it necessary to repress all tentative effort in the way of developing its resources.^ Speaking of rates, it is impossible to avoid saying that those of the Government charged upon coal are also unreasonable. The whole thing wants revision and reduction. The Government’s charge is bad enough, but thiut of the Kaitangata Company is worse, reminding one very forcibly of the French doctor’s touching description of gout: “Place your joint,” he said, “in a vice, and screw the vice until you can endure it no longer—that is rheumatism ; then give the instrument another twist, and you will obtain some notion of the gout. Half-a-crown a ton was the other “twist” of the Kaitangata doctor for the benefit of the Castle Hill patient.—l am, etc., W. H. Dunedin, April 14.