NET EARNINGS PER MILE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15769, 18 November 1914, Page 6

NET EARNINGS PER MILE

While railway matters are under discussion it is as well to recall the fundamental unfairness which underlay the entire system of construction and management during the whole of the Continuous Administration. Every possible effort was made to raise money to spend in the South Island; every possible effort was made to extract profit from the North Island railway business. If Mr. Myers, speaking as an Opposition candidate, doubts this, the Herald will be pleased to furnish him with sufficient data to convince any unbiased elector. The South Island system, as an insular system, has never paid its way, and is unlikely to pay its way for many years. It is over-built and wretchedly laid out. It was intended, as j a system, to placate electorates, not ! to develop the country The North Island system haw' been the prontearning system, has been starved and grudged, straitened and cramped, for no other reason than to turn the constant loss on the Southern system into a general profit upon the entire railway business of the Dominion. Under the Massey Government some measure of consideration has been given to the North Island in the matter of railway facilities, with the inevitable and natural result that the net earnings per mile have fallen. This result may be regretted by those who think that the North should always be a milch cow for the domestic uses of the South, but will excite no alarm in Auckland electorates The Continuous Government was a? its worst in its railway methods, as Auckland knows to its cost. Even Mr. Myers might have become heartbroken had his attempts at improvement been long continued under such auspices. Few will share the cheery optimism which asks the public to dismiss a progressive government in order to give a thoroughly-discredited party another chance.