DIFFERENTIAL RATING: ACTION OF ENGLAND AND AMERICA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9322, 27 March 1889, Page 6

DIFFERENTIAL RATING: ACTION OF ENGLAND AND AMERICA.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—For more than six years past, in the most forcible language 1 could command, I have denounced the differential rating system ; have exposed its pernicious effects in other countries, and have endeavoured to arouse my fellow-colonists to a sense of the danger hanging over us. So far my warning has had no effect. Two of our Railway Commissioners loudly asserted that 1 did not know what I was writing about, and many more thought that I was prejudiced, and exaggerated. What has happened In America and England the railways are owned by private people and companies ; but in spite of this fact the Legislature of the United States in ISS7 absolutely prohibited differential rating, under the most severe penalties. This is so far as the general legislature is concerned. Each State has the right to control its own railways. The General Government deals with the through traffic. Some of the States have for years past prohibited differential rates. The latest advices from England inform us that the British Parliament has also passed an Act prohibiting the use of the atrocious system. The French Chamber of Deputies and the United Chambers of Commerce of Germany have also denounced it, and legislative action in hose countries is sure to be taken shortly. Hut what have we in New Zealand done ? We have actually passed an Act specially providing for its introduction, and have given to three officials powers such as no other men ever possessed in any country, to work ib in its worst, most oppressive, and dishonest forms. We are surely a community of madmen to place ourselves and our property in such a position. My agitation for railway reform has embraced two main contentions :—lst. That differential rating must be abolished. 2nd. That mileage rating—that is to say, reckoning fares and rates by the mile, must also be abolished. Now that the legislative action of the two most powerful and enlightened nations in the world has in this decided manner proved the soundness of my first contention, I think I can fairly claim to speak with some authority ; and in the most emphatic manner I say, that un-

less the Government Railways Act of 1887 is repealed, and differential and mileage rating abolished, ruin stares New Zealand in the face. If great and wealthy countries like Great Britain and America cannot stand the differential rating system, how is it possible that a poor country like New Zealand can? I ask of what value are the self-interested opinions of men Tike Messrs. Maxwell, Han nay, and Mitchelson, as opposed to the united wisdom and action of these great countries. But for their incompetence New Zealand might have taken the lead in this great reformation. As it is, not only does she la? in the rear, but in railway matters has taken the most distinctly retrograde step of any civilised country. What will posterity say?—l am, &c., Samuel Vaile. Auckland, March 25, 18S9.