RAILWAY FREIGHTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10220, 14 December 1893, Page 3

RAILWAY FREIGHTS.

[contributed.] Do the railways exist for the farmers, or tho farmers for the railways ? This is a question which is being very freely agi-, tated and discussed in Victoria as well as here. It has certainly reached an acute stage in the sister colony, and has lad to a Commission, “ The Tariff Board ” being set up to taka evidence in various parts of the country. _ The farmers arc very outspoken, and inveigh in a large degree against the proceedings of the Railway Commissioners for the heavy freights levied. Differential rates are instituted in some sections to drive tho trade towards Melbourne. The answer of the Commissioners, of course, is that they have to make the railways return a revenue and pay interest. Just how far tho compromise should be carried between making a revenue and earning the interest on the cost of the railways and the concessions to be made to encourage the use of tho rsilways and promote tho settlement of tho land, is a delicate question. We are certainly in advance of Victoria, where very heavy duties are enforced upon agricultural implements and machinery. The farmers are loud in their demands that such should bo largely reduced or remitted entirely, and as a body, on the whole, show a distinct leaning towards Freetrade, and also, be it marked, of intercolonial reciprocity. Reduction of duties and railway freights on agricultural goods will have to form part of any fiscal rearrangement. A point worthy of note, too, is that the implement makers do not want a high protective tariff, one large maker saying that he could compete better with outside makers if there were no duties, which hindered him. Tho farmers argue that if duties were lowered the local makers would reduce their prices also. Belling prices of farmers’ products have become reduced in the neighbouring Colonies, as in Victoria, while no corresponding change has taken place in the cost of farmers’ necessaries. The transport to’ and from long distances inland over the railways, forms an important factor in the farmers’ calculations, which a drop in tho value of his products upsets. The only thing he can calculate with certainty is the railway freights, which, while the other factors vary, remain fixed,, grinding and unalterable. On the border sections between Victoria and South Australia, in tho district whore the natural and shortest route to tho sea is to Adelaide, the railways institute a differential rate to force the products over the railways to Melbourne; while at the same time they do not object to receiving over the eastern border the produce of New South Wales farmers, who find it cheapest for them to ship their goods from Melbourne. The lessons to be learnt are instructive, and show how the railways may be used to hamper or expand trade. Cheap railway carriage will mean the promotion of settlement in the country, and dispersion from the towns of the congested population. ‘