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Lyttelton Times, Volume LXII, Issue 7411, 29 November 1884, Page 4

Uwtii. we have non-political railway management we shall probably not have differential rating in New Zealand. in the general sense in which the phrase is used by its supporters. Differential rating we have in partial operation already, as has been abundantly proved daring the last few years. It has also been proved that the reasons for extending the principle. though good, are not strong enough to override the political spirit by which the railway management is controlled necessaril v as long as the present system lasts. When the management becomes non-political, it is very probable that things will improve in this respect. But when will that be ? We have confidence enough in the Government to hope that the political principle will be. if not eliminated, much curbed and restricted by the end of next session. Bat whether, when the system of non-political Boards is substituted, the opening will be sufficiently large for the differential principle of rating to enter in and rule, is more than anyone can say nntil the Ministerial plan of railway reform is before the country. That there will bo a reform, and in the direction of nonpolitical Boards, we gather from the announcements made in the time of the first Stent-Vogel Government, whose programme the present Government, the second of the name, is busily engaged in carrying out. In the meantime, however, there is a pretty general feeling in Canterbury that the grain rates are too high. The Chamber of Commerce has entered a protest on this question, which has the support of the community to a large extent. To that protest we trust the Government may sec its way to give effect. The rate may not be prohibitory to the farmer, but these are times when the fanners cannot bear any extra charges. They are competing against producers who. in countries nearer to the great markets of the world, enjoy the advantages of cheap carriage to the sea. The carrying of grain in some districts may not be profitable, but that it :s not profitable at present rates in the great grain-producing districts no one now asserts. If a reduction of the rates of last year causes actual loss in some districts, it will be a small loss which the Colony can afford to bear. The question is complicated by the fact that Parliament has passed the appropriations, calculated on the basis of the present rates. It is said that a Government which braved Parliament last session for the sake of increasing the revenue was ousted from office. Two things are forgotten here. The first is that the special offence of the Atkinson Government was an interference with the rates, contrary to a vote of the House of Representatives, aud in a manner which established a bad constitutional precedent. The second is that the raising of the grain rate did not kill the Atkinson Government; the measure of that Government’s iniquity was full before the rates were raised. In Canterbury the elections turned on very much broader issues than the grain rates afford. Of these broader issues it u impossible to lose sight.