RAILWAY REFORM.-THE DECREASING REVENUE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7415, 25 August 1885, Page 6

RAILWAY REFORM.-THE DECREASING REVENUE.

N^JLUJLJDtJXIIU XKU * AU - ' U. TO THE KDITOB. Sib, —I was glad to see your sab-leader in to-day's issue, calliog attention to the serious position of our railway*, and to the enormous increase in the yearly loss. My own estimate of the increase of loss for the current year is that it will be much nearer £150.000 than it will be to £100,000, and I should not be at all surprised to find it exceed the former amount. The total loss for the year ending March, ISS6, will Dot be lees than £500,000, and probably will reach £600,000; all of which will have to be paid out of. the general taxation of the country. You remark that no system of railway management can remove the existing depression. This to some extent is no doubt true, but a system that would encourage settlement, the establishment of industries, the development of our mineral and other resources would go a long way towards alleviating, and would finally remove it altogether. Whatever may be thought of the system of railway management proposed, I can at any rate claim this, that 1 am the only man in the community that clearly foresaw and foretold the trouble that has come upon us. I can also olaim that, on two previous occasion-, I pointed out that the fiaanoial anticipations of the department would not be realised, and that the result published many months afterwards proved that I was correct. All I have ever asked for my system is, that it should be fully considered, and I think the facts stated above entitle me to this much. Absurd as the statement may appear, I am yet convinced that by making our railways serve the requirements of the country—the depression, notwithstanding — it would be easy to a.id half amillion to the revenue. Within the last few days I know of a £50 stamp lost to the Government, and a valuable settler to the colony, owing to the wretched management of our railways, and this sort of thing goes on constantly. If applying the law of averages has been so successful in the case of letters, parcels, and telegrams, why should it not succeed in the case of railways ? In asking that the commission to enquire may consist of the Minister of Public Works, the General Manager of Railways, and one delegate from each of the Chambers of Commerce, in all ten or twelve of the keenest men to be found in the colony, I have given the best possible evidence that 1 do not fear the result of being well sifted ; and I may also say that I am fully conscious of the unenviable position I should hold, if I failed. it should also be borne in mind that my system has been carefully examined.by competent men, who report that it will effect all that I have ever claimed for it; indeed, every " railway man" of known and acknowledged position who has examined it has in the most emphatic manner expressed the opinion that it will give results far beyond anything I olaim. Nor has anyone yet been found to show where I am wrong, and surely at a time like this anything that offers even a remote chance of relieving us from some portion of our difficulties is worth consideration. I am also aware that some of the superior officers of the department have been ordered to, and have reported on my system. If Mr. Richardson had dared to he would have laid those reports on the table of the House ; but instead of this he resorted to gross prevarication, and tried to stifle enquiry by endeavouring to convince members that I am as. weak and vacillating as be is himself. To read Mr. Richardson's Public Works Statement of last year, in the light of events, is like reading a " screaming farce." Where are his great reforms ? But I forget 1 They were, no doubt, to be carried out by the Chairman of the South Island Railway Board, and it is a very 'open secret" who expected to be that Chairman, and that the Boards were to be formed for the Chairman, and not for the colony.— am, A.C., , Samuel Vaxle. Auckland, August 22, ISSS.