THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1987.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10627, 16 December 1897, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1987.

The Public Works Statement submitted to Parliament has at least the merit of lucidity. It is a plain and seemingly unvarnished tale of not overabounding funds, and, everything considered, it | presents a reasonably fair allocation of the amounts available. The day of sensational statements of public works expenditure has passed for the present at least, and until the time comes when the colony will again feel, or imagine itself to be, in a position to launch again into a great scheme for borrowing—which perhaps is not in j the very distant future—we shall have to be content with such moderate extensions and completions of existing public works as our moderate means may justify. The Estimates provide for a total outlay for public works of a little over a million sterling, of which £364,000 go to railways. For continuing the Main Trunk line, £32,000 are proposed ; for the Kamo-Kawakawa line r £8000; for the Helensville northward line, £6000 ; and for the Gra-hamstown-Te Aroha line, £12,000, of which £7000 has been expended; while for the Kaihu Valley line nothing, is proposed; and the projected PaeroaWaihi line, which was taken out of the hands of a company proposing its construction, is to be left in a condition of suspended animation. On the other hand, a sum of £30,000 is set apart for finishing the Ekataliuna - Woodville line, and a sum of £25,000 is proposed for vigorously continuing the muddled Midland Railway, and £30,000, or almost as] much as asked for the North Island Trunk Railway, is proposed for the continuation of the notorious Otago Central. In the general appropriations for other public works, this district comes off fairly well, although judging from experience of votes and expenditure during last year and years preceding, the sums allocated by vote seem to bear but a loose relation to the amounts that may bo actually expended. Further than this the Supplementary Estimates for Public Works on this occasion are likely to loom up prodigiously in consequence of the setting free of the large amount intended to be held in reserve for the Old Age Pensions, the measure dealing with that proposal having received the "happy dispatch" at the hands of the Legislative Council.

But the most interesting portion, perhaps, o£ the Public Works' Statement, is that relating to light railways. It is true there is, no immediate proposal in connection with such works, but the statement of the case of the narrow gauge is put so forcibly and so convincingly that we have little difficulty in seeing foreshadowed the adoption of this principle as a dominant feature in connection with future public works extension in New Zeahnd. It is impossible to read the statement on this subject, fortified as it is by the voluminous testimony of experts who know by experience the truth of what they are speaking of, without feeling convinced that the day of the light narrowgauge railway has come, and that the principle is particularly applicable to ; our circumstances in New Zealand. It is significantly shown, and stated with emphasis, that the objections raised against the light narrow gauge system, are almost exclusively the objections of those who have had no experience of the" system they are condemning, and that almost invariably those who are personally cognisant of the working of the system are strongly in favour of it, in circumstances and under conditions that exactly rule in this country. .We have long and persistently urged the favourable; consideration of this system in future railway extension, while we were not fortified by such arguments as have been accumulated in this appendix to the' Public Works Statement. And we hold that it is the duty of every colonist to carefully interest himself in this question as one that has a most important bearing on the future development of New Zealand. The great bugbear that seems to haunt this question and to frighten people' from impartially considering it" is the break of gauge. But admitting that break of gauge is an evil to be avoided, we have it here presented in the light of its disadvantages and cost of working, so that we are able to calculate whether or not its evil is equal to. the advantages that. may ;-•? accrue - from adopting the narrow gauge. It appears that the cost of transhipping cargo between lines of different gauge is as low as 3d per ton in South Australia, while by the adoption of what is known as "transportation ; care"—by - which the body of the car and all , its contents are lifted from, one set of wheels on -to another of a different gauge — the " cost of transfer from J gauge to gauge .is minimised :to an amount of, cost ; that is " barely ;; appreciable.-'• In ? the 1 case •■'■• of passengers there is of course neither inconvenience nor expense. On the other hand, for moderate traffic,'' the cost of construction is so different, that- the saving of interest will in seven years! equal, the total cost of construction, of the narrow gauge line. ' - r . j

.Whereas the sharpest curves 'on the New Zealand $■ lines have a radius of from five chains to seven and a-half, the curves,on - the ! Tasmanian narrowgauge line have a radius of one and ahalf; chains, and ; those on the Indian lines have a radius of a chain; so that

almost ; any turning of comers can ba negotiated. Bridges, viaducts, cuttings, tunnelling?;" embankments can be avoided ; ; the cost of maintenance of the line is diminished, the maintenance of the locomotive expenses is considerably less,' and : where a standard-gauge , railway would be smothered in expenses, as so many of our railways are, and pay neither profit nor interest on the capital sunk .in construction, a ; narrow-gauge line may be a lucrative investment. In India, where both systems are seen in operation, it lias been shown that a narrow-gauge light line with less than a fourth' of the passenger traffic and one-twentieth of . the goods traffic, and passing through a poor district, pays a greater percentage of profits than standard gauge lines passing through the pick of the country. . It is impossible to doubt that in such narrow-gauge lines we have the " Open Sesame to prosperity in the settlement and development of the country. Costing on an average one -fifth of .'outlay of the standard lines, cheaper in maintenance, and cheaper in working, it is in reason to suppose that such lines could afford to give cheaper transport of goods and of passengers, which is the sine qm no of settlement over a lavge portion of this country, It is the high fares and freights of our railways that have blighted agricultural ' productions in the interior of the country, and the only reason for them lias been the necessity for meeting the interest on the vast capital sunk in out railways. How would-it be with the country supposing that the capital cos*; , of our railways, and the consequent cost. of transit and transport, could be divided by five? Does any one doubt that it would send afresh thrill of life tlirough the colony 1 We are no doubt advancing to a time when further borrowing, and further railway construction on an extensive scale -will be imperative, tnd the public mind should familiarise itself with this' question of light narrow gauge railways— principle which is universally approved by those who have seen the system in working, which is being freely adopted in many lands, and which seems to be only opposed by engineers . and railway men, whose ideas have been fossilised by the professional conventions. For it is a well known, fact that reform of any kind is almost uniformly carried in the teeth of professional resistance, the mind habituated to run in a professional groove being void of elasticity and incapable of raising itself to the ■ acceptance of new ideas that are not contained in the closed volume of professional knowledge. It is only by proofs of actual success that this obstinacy can be overcome, and the public should take note of the testimony of those experts who have been already convinced by seeing the success of the narrow gauge light line, and its great value under conditions that make the construction of other lines inadmissible. New South Wales, and now Victoria, have resolved on making this new departure in' railway construction; and the political leader who will first lead off with a large scheme of light narrow-gauge railway construction in Zealand, spreading like a network all over the country,will have a battle cry that will arouse the people from end to . end of the colony as they have not been moved for many a year. . - ■ \ .