OUR HEALING WATERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10419, 17 April 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

OUR HEALING WATERS.

[uy colonus.] Is our Thermal district a hundred and sovonty-one milo3 from here, we have a largeareaof country, ovor which are bubbling up waters of healing, provided gratuitously by the hand of nature. The fame of it has spread over all the earth, and strangers come from distant places, decrepit or disease 1, and go away rejoicing in their health restored, to spread the lame of our wonderful waters. Vet there are thousands of families in this centre of population, numbers of which, children and wive.-i and fulhore, ar-3 from ciino to time feeblo, or failinjr, or crippled, to whom theso healing springs are as if they had nover existed. Koine of these families are very poor, the larger part of them are no't strictly poor, but they cannot afford tho serious cost of ihe transit charges uver the 170 mile?, and so this priceless boon is only tho privilege of tho comparatively rich. Of course it is the law of nature, at least as wo interpret it, that tho best things must be otdy for the rich; but in a country liko ours, whicn boast.- that ire polity is expressly beneficent to thoso that have but little ot this world's troods, it does seem hard that a natural boon of such priceless valuo as this should be practically withheld from the poor. And the railway that epan3 tho intervening distance is the property of tho State, and supposed to bo worked for the interests of all. But tho rails lie wasting in tho rain and sunshine, and thowrthnorks. keep crumbling away, while one train traverses the distance from either ond once a day, for the most part empty, and only containing those who from their comparative abundance can biiar the cost, of a visit to those waters of healing. Now if it was asked that trains should be run at the cost of other people for tho benefit ot those who riesiro to vUit tho thermal district, it might not unreasonably bo denounced as a piece of detestable Socialism, Buc if it is the case thab trains at a mere nominal fare-charge could bo run between this city and Rotorua at the cost of the travellers only, then anybody would think, that the refusal to run them so, and the persistence in keeping up tho fares to a prohibitive tariff, must be either callous cruelty or thundering pigheadednees. Has anyone calculated the actual cost of conveying a full-grown passenger over the hundred and seventy-one miles of rail, between this city and the Thermal Springs at Rotorua? And will it be a surprise to be told that the actual coat is under sixpence ! This is not theory, or reckless assertion, but tho statoment of oxperts after careful calculation. Probably tho most reliable authority to be found on the conduct of railway traffic and its cost should be looked for to the Railway Clearing House in London. It is associated with all the railways of England, and cognizant of their doings as no other authority is. I would hardly say thab even the railway authorities in New Zealand, though they kuow a good deal, know more than the chairman of the Railway Clearing House in London. Well, that gentleman has etated as the result of collation and calculation that the cost of carriage of one ton weight by rail is a halfpenny per mile, and that taking 15 avorage passenger to weign a ton—an average of between 10 and 11 stone each -15 passengers are carried a mile by rail for one halfpenny. This, as anyone may see, is equivalent to sayine that one passenger of the average weight is carried 30 miles at an expenditure for coals of one penny. In other words: the cost of the consumption of coals in convoying a passenger over the 171 miles of rail between Auckland and Rotorua is fivepence and 7-lOths of a penny. It is easy enough to anticipate the burst of objections breaking forth at such a statement as this; New Zealand is not England j there are other coats besides fuel —what of the wear and toar of the rails and permanent way and the rolling stock; and who is to pay the interest on the capital coat ?

Hold hard a little. One thing at a time. It is true New Zealand is not England. The cost of coal may be greater here, though not very much. But supposing that it were double, treble, quadruple the cost, there is margin enough in the difference between sixpence and £1 3s 9d, the present lowest railway fare to Rotorua. It is true there are other costs besides fuel. Guards, engine-drivers, and eo on have to be reckoned on, for which more than the sixpence must be charged. Ditto the wear and tear of the rails and embankments—though of these it may be said that as they are at present used by the two passing trains, for probably a minute and a half in every twenty-four hours, and for the rest of the time—namely, 23 hours and 58J minutes—are malting no return on the capital sunk in them anjt in the permanent nay, they wight be note ueoiully employed

instead of wastingaway with nisband time— the great destructiveenemyof a railway line. Ditto the rolling stock and the interest on capital sunk, for all of which we have te seek provision in the margin between fivepenco 7-lOths, and '.'.ls 9d or 35s Bd, present fares to Rotorua. Now, nobody means to nay that if a man had tho train all to himself he could be run up to Rotorua for sixpence. Hut taking a train with compartments to contain SIX) passengers, and assuming thai the train ran only one half full, then the actual cost of conveyine each passenger would be one penny for 30 miles. In Hungary for the last eight years, through a sparaely-settled portion of the country, they have been carrying passengers 457 miles for 3* 4d per single fare, and the Hungarian railways have been such a financial success un lei- the reformed system, that Austria and Ruesk and other countries have been following the example. On the same tariff the fare lo Rotorua from Auckland would be about Is 2.1.

Ad one fact is worth a bushel of theories, will anyone say why what has been a success in Hungary should not be a success in New Zealand ? Supposing, however, that to meet the dull-heads, and in consideration of butter means diffused anions; our population, the fare to Kotorua was lixu'l at over double the amount, or 2i 81, will anyone give a valid reason why it would not be as successful financially in New Zealand as in Hungary! It is no usn Baying that tho circumstances are different, for they are not, as affecting tho probable return?, The districts through which tho'-o trains run in Hungary appear to Iμ as sparsely occupied as the Auckland provincial district, and they have not such conditions as those of a largo and flourishing commercial city at ono end, and one of the most attractive sanatorium* in the world at the other.

In Hungary a travelling public was created out of a scattered population that never travelled, and tho same might reasonably bo expected Lo occur in New Zealand. And if not, why not? When the penny post was proposed by Rowland Hill, tho dull-heads of those days, and moro particularly those, most intimately connected with the*postal art, pooh-poohed the idea of u letter being carried from John o'Groai.'s House to Land's End for a penny. The thing was preposterous. It would never do. Only fancy ! All tho mail men and coache», an I horses and post offices, and letter carriers, that would bo engaged in that route of six or seven hundred miles; and ail this for ono penny! U'hy, it was simply laughable. None but a horn idiot would suggest such a thing. Yet it was done, an I that long before the iron horse wont snorting over tho network of iron tracks, and reduced tho cost of traflie to a minimum.

Thero was no letter-writing public in tho*a days, but it was creatol by the ponny post, and despite tlio vaticinations of tho dull-heads the penny post hai been one of the startling successes of iho century.

But let Hβ bo magnanimous with tho-e whose misfortune it is, and not their fault, that they cannot look beyond iho length of their own nose, and let- us suppose llie scale of faro to Kotorna fixo:l at five shillings or more than four times the scale of cheap fares that have proved so financially and socially .«ueees*iul in Hungary. l'rohably tho tractions to those seeking recuperation of health are so £ruat, and the general scale of earnings nvon of tho poorer classes is so goo 1, that a live shilling fare to tho Hue Lake district would moot the conditions of tho casu.

And let us suppose a train containing 300 passengers paying live shillings a hi-ad dispatched to Kotorua. The actual cost of moving those pas.»encera for the 171 milee would be under £7 Kb in the consumption of coal, and tho receipts for |).is«ungere for thu single train would bo £75; leaving a margin of £67 10-> on the day'.- operation.i to meet the cost* of the U'roase for tho wheels, tho officers and servants engaged, tho wear and tear of the lino, and of the onginos and carriage* and the interest on the capital <;ost for tho iiay. To be euro in carrying up tho ten or twelve people who iiveingotho present daily traffic to Rotorua, there is nearly about as much grease required for the wheels; the officers and servant* employed are about trio same, and wear and te.ir aro about equal, unci (he day's interest on capital sunk is always unvarying, But it tho grease and the porters and the wear wore quadrupled in coat the margin of £117 10s would bear tho atrain, and leave as much over to pay the day's interest as could bo squeezed out of the ten or twelve poisons who are carried all that way in nearly empty cars. Ot course a 300 passengers train would not start the first morning after reform had triumphed over stupidity. Perhaps in tho first season such an average might not be obtained; even at the whole world did not set itself down in write letters tho day after Rowland Hill oQeredjto take them at apenny a piece. Tho world had to wake up to the fact, and then the loiters hummed.

And so it would bo if 5-i wore made the passenger faro to tho Hot Luke district. There ie not a family of the 60,001) people in this metropolitan centre that would not be stirred at tho thought of such a boon brought so easily within their reach. The suction would begin to move over the whole provincial district. The influence would be folt throughout all New Zealand, nor would it be lost on distant parts, that the Hot Lake district had been practically uiaiio a suburb of the City of Auckland. Residences and accommodation houses would sproad over tho Thermal district, until living became as cheap as in Auckland to the humblest family, and thousands of failing and Buffering poople who are now shut off by prohibitory fares, would share in the glorious gifts of hoaling that Nature has provided in that wonderful district). Surely this is a consideration that should be valued in the possession of what we have as so great a gilt from Nature At present the Hot Lake district is the oxclusive perquisite of the rich, or tit least of the well-to-do. To the families of the poor it is practically as inaccessible as if it was in the moon. Even if the introduction of cheap fares to it were an adventure, would it not bo worth a risk to make the venture of bringing those healing waters within tho easy reach of all ? Does it not seem a cruel slmmo to seo those 170 miles of rails lying shining in the Bunlight, the money that laid them all sunk, practically unutilised, with one nearly empty train running to or fro those health-giving waters every day 2 Those carriages might just as well be filled as empty, and men and women might be allowed to crowd them, with only an extra expenditure of sixpence a head for the whole journey. That sixpence many n poor man would gladly pay. Ten times that) ho would doubtless willingly pay, and ib seems sheer dog-in-the-manger policy to hold the line and refuse to allow it to be utilised with profit to tho revenue, and unspeakable blessing to the people.