CORRESPONDENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7402, 10 August 1885, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

MR. FIRTH ON RAILWAYS. TO THIS EDITOR, Sir,l apprehend that if Messrs. Stout, Vogel, and Co., ot Wellington, would read and carefully digest Mr. Firth's letter, which was published in your issue of last Wednesday, they might have their " loan " minds impressed with something, if not to their own advantage, which might possibly result to the advantage of the unfortunate tax* payers of this most miserably misgoverned colony. It is quite true what Mr. Firth states that the railways of this colony are not paying interest on their coat, and I am well satisfied that they never will pay so long as they are so recklessly mismanaged. But then again, if they were ever so well managed, they will never yield the estimated revenue they would have done had the cost of construction been originally carried out in a practical form. lam not alone, I believe, in stating that neither skill nor experience has had anything whatever to do with them originally, the entire system being a miserable, shallow attempt at imitation. -The whole affair savours most strongly of incompetence, impotence, and inability. In regard to Mr. Firth's remarks, that after our celebrated "loan" manipulators have satisfactorily arranged their intended additional burthens in the shape of "only" another million or two to our already crushing colonial debt (of some 32 millions). They will most certainly leave us (as they have done before) to fork out the result of their skilful financial operations (namely, the additional taxes). And so long as needy adventurers are sent to Parliament by the people of this colony to manage their affairs, so long must they make up their minds to put up with the consequences.—I am, &c., R. W, Moody,