LYTTELTON-CHRISTCHURCH RATES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVII, Issue 11224, 23 March 1897, Page 6

LYTTELTON-CHRISTCHURCH RATES.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Is it for the good of the whole community, or only to line the pockets of the interested few, that all t his machinery is being put in motion? Supposing the Minister was to reduce the tonnage rates one way to nil, who would be the gainers ? I venture to say only those few who have an axe to grind, not the people at large, who in the end will be the sufferers, if the tonnage rates are reduced. Not so, if the excessive passenger rates were reduced. This would be a real boon to the people, and the greatest good to the greatest number. If all the wholesale houses were to shift to Wellington they would “none of them be missed.” We would still have the people who consume and produce, and it would be the easiest thing in the world to initiate a large cooperative system of distribution, which would do away with the present useless army of non-producers, middlemen and agents, who are at best a clog on the wheels of progress, and drones in the hive of industry, and who now want to so manipulate the Government railways to serve their own selfish ends. It is to be hoped that Mr Cadman will see to it that, when a double profit is made from goods imported and afterwards exported, a double share of that profit shall go into the State coffers, and will materially assist the Department in bringing about a fair reduction in the present exorbitant passenger rates.—l am, &c., BEGEMUS.