MR. VAILE AND RAILWAYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9539, 4 December 1889, Page 3

MR. VAILE AND RAILWAYS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir.,—Mr. S. Vaile in his letter in your columns dated 26th inst., gives certain ex- ( tracts from American publications which he commends, to those who believe in private ownership of railways. But I fail to see how his extracts bear upon the subject of ownership. They simply state that railways will yet come to be generally regulated by Municipal and State authority. That is a very different matter from State ownership. I can inform Mr. Vaile thab America has already solved this difficulty, and thab too without buying up and working all its railways by armies of civil servants. Some years ago a commission was appointed by the President with the advice of the Senate, consisting of five commissioners appointed for six years at a salary of 7500 dollars per annum each. The object of this commission is particularly to inquire into the charges made by railway companies, and see that they do not exact extortionate rates. 1 * If a company is found extortionate, the commission has power to reduce the rates to a. fair basis. The commission has been doing good work in the various States. I extract the following from a New York paper of 20th July last:—" The stock market to-day opened dull and weak, and, on the announcement that the Missouri Railway Commission had ordered a reduction of rates on lines to the Missouri traders, a general decline followed, led by the Missouri Pacific." Now, Mr. Vaile, therein lies the beauty, power, and magnificence of Government. It is not to own and work railways with a huge army of civil servants and its attendant jobbery and corruption, but simply to step in and interfere where monopolies are cruel and unjust. The same principle «is applied in the mutter of a loaf of bread ; if it is sold under weight, or if its ingredients are nob the proper thing, the Government will interfere and punish the baker. But Mr. Vaile, to be consistent, would say, don't punish the baker, but have more civil servants and create State bakeries. How comes it that Mr. Vaile so persistently attacks our railways when they only earn about two and a-half per cent, on inveeted capital ?—that return shows they are worked in the interest of the traders to an enormous extent. If they were earning the dividends falling to the owners of our Union Steamship Company, I could understand his antagonism. But he does not raise a voice against this monopoly, nor does he suggest a State ownership of steamboats. Yet, hero in New Zealand, in consequence of our great seaboard, they have more influence for good or evil than our railways. Carriers, steamboat proprietors, and such-like, can, by combining, make high charges which will pauperise a district; they then can shift their plant, and seek a more profitable and wealthy trade. Railways, on the other hand, are a fixture, and if they do not encourage the prospects of the district they run through, must inevitably bring ruin on themselves, as they cannot change their location. I Avill close this letter by giving an extract from the report of the American Inter-State Commerce Commission, for the year 188 S. It says :—" When rates are such that reasonable returns are nob probable, a, public injury is threatened—the apparent benefit is almost always illusory, and it will generally be found that reasonable rates adjusted equitably over the whole field of service, would have beenmuch better to the country. Unreasonably low rates are antagonistic to good service, and injurious to the public interest." I commend this extract to Mr. Vaile and the Reform League, who think so much of some stage system, and fare to Hamilton Is Scl.—l am, etc. Peter Oliphaxt.