NEW ZEALAND RAILWAYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6213, 15 October 1881, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND RAILWAYS.

* [BY TKLKORAriI. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] I CiirtMTCHURCU, Friday. The Lyttelton Times publishes a table this morning, showing the cost of receipts and profit of the colonial railways for the five months of the financial year that have expired. The total profit of the North Island railways so far is £24,076, a return on the cost of 1 per cent. On the Southern railway, the profit is £121,618, a percentage of I.S per cent. The total cost of the 1304 miles open has been £10,015,602, and the percentage of profit for the five months ou the whole is 1.4 per cent, or at the rate of 3.6 per cent, for the year. The Times points out, however, that the best of the grain season and the whole of the wool season have yet to come, and down here these always enormously swell the receipts. It is quite possible therefore that the New Zealand Railways will this year return 4 per cent, on the cost of their construction. The Otago and Southland Railways have made a big jump, and it is to them that the increased profit is largely due as compared with the previous year. The Christchurch and Oamaru sections each show an increase in profit of £2000, but the Dunedin section has jumped from £16,000 to £34,000, and the Invercargill section from £5000 to £11,000. Whereas the percentage for the first five months last year on the HurunuiBluff line was Vβ per eent., this year it is 2 per cent., showing that the unwonted increase is not due to thoopening of new lengths of line, but to better paying capacities. Looking at the fair prospects thus shadowed out, the Times thinks that the tariff might very well be reduced in those instances where it is known to press hardly on the public. The whole table is an exceedingly interesting one, and gives a better insight into the manner in which the various lines pay than any of the Gazette tables.