RAILWAY BOARD’S VISIT.

Evening Star, Issue 21078, 15 April 1932, Page 8

RAILWAY BOARD’S VISIT.

Preoccupation with other matters has doubtless caused less interest in the visit of the Railway Board to Otago than would otherwise have been the case. No little significance attaches to such tours of inspection.. The main trunk lines of the New Zealand railway system are the real earners of revenue. The majority of the branch lines are degenerating into mere parasites —that is, from the purely financial aspect of the railway accountant. In the railway bookkeeping these branch lines are not unfairly treated, for their value as feeders to the main lines is duly assessed and credited to them; yet they show deficits. The days have long passed when the Consolidated Fund could bo drawn on to make up the losses incurred on the railways. On the contrary, it is desirable that this vast transport system should not only pay its way, but contribute to the relief of tbo hard-pressed taxpayer. Such a consummation is admittedly one which looks highly improbable within

this generation, but under the spur of necessity one never knows when the seemingly unattainable may come within reach at last. Something was expected from attempts to co-ordinate road and rail traffic, but the initial sittings of the Transport Board in this district did not seem to reveal any radical changes in policy. But tho Railway Board is coming into personal contact with those most concerned with tlie operation of the branch railways. These are the farmers in country districts. Their predecessors, of perhaps more than one generation back, pinned the hopes of their district’s progress on provision of railway transport. They in many cases organised district railway leagues, and alternately cajoled and threatened local politicians and Ministers of the Crown, and in too many cases, as posterity is realising, their efforts were successful. The “ political ” railway has proved one of the millstones round the necks of selfgoverning outposts of Empire in the Southern Hemisphere, where the State ownership of railway transport is practically universal. If the debt incurred over construction could bo discarded as lightly as the ill-patronised lines themselves, the problem would not be so di '.cult. As it is the Railways Board is convinced that some lines must be shut down unless they are better patronised. There is a ray of hope in the fact that farmers are displaying real apprehension lest such a thing should befall their particular district. Genuine alarm, we are told, is being expressed to tho board over tho possibility of railway facilities being denied them. Bub it is one thing to regard the railways as merely a convenient standby, and quite another thing to treat them as tho means of transport that must always receive first consideration. The time, however, has already arrived when costs of production and marketing are the farmers’ first consideration. If the railways can show' that transport by them is cheaper than by any other method, they will have little difficulty in recapturing and keeping lost traffic. Unfortunately in too many cases the railways are as yet unable to do this. Instances have been quoted to us of charges which are quite non-competitive, and in some cases prohibitive. An economy campaign in the matter of railway working expenses is being conducted by tho department, but it will have to go further and deeper to enable many of the existing charges to be reduced with safety. There need not be utter pessimism as to the possibility of rehabilitation of railway transport in public esteem and patronage. The return of the horse in agriculture in Australia supplies evidence of a “ come-back ” against supposed overwhelming odds. One of the features of the Royal Agricultural Show at Sydney about Easter time was the evidence of the horse’s rapid restoration in rural favour. With the decline of prices of products many farmers found that power fanning was beyond their depth. Some of the tractor-sellers solved tho problem in one way by taking the machinery back because tho farmers could not keep up the payments. Then tho farmer found himself without power and without horses. To meet the situation thus created share-farmers with horses were brought in. During the popularity of tho tractor horses were at a discount, and beasts that in other years would have been worth many pounds were sold for shillings. In localities where feed had fallen off owing to dry conditions good horses whoso condition showed signs of deteriorating were turned adrift on the roads, whence they were impounded and sold at auction for shillings per head. Now things are different. Low prices for produce and high prices for everything that comes from overseas have brought the horse back into popularity. .His return to favour has been rapid. In many districts land that was powertilled for the past three or four or even eight seasons is knowing again the tramp of the horse team. Up to £45 is being paid for first-grade farm horses—the same sort that were high buying at £lO a head not long ago. As may be discerned from the above, it is necessity which has brought about the reversion, and if the New Zealand railway authorities could speculate a little on the strength of a probable great increase in turnover accompanying inducements in the form of charges which the farmer could not turn down in favour of other moans of transport, the way to a great reduction of losses, and perhaps ultimately some small margin of profit being shown by many branch lines, would bo opened up.