RAILWAYS AND MOTORS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19891, 9 March 1928, Page 8

RAILWAYS AND MOTORS.

The possibility of a deficit of £1,000,000 in the railway accounts, suggested by Mr. Coates a few days ago, is made less remote by the latest monthly return. Excluding the subsidy, the net earnings in 192627 fell short of the interest charges du<j to the Consolidated Fund by £545,000; according to the Budget, the liability for the current year will bs £136,000 more; and already the net revenue is £194,000 less. The deficiency is already £855,000 and the two remaining periods of the year will almost certainly make it very little less than £950>000. That this retrogression is due substantially to motor competition is generally recognised. Some information regarding the character and the extent of that competition is afforded by the first compilation of returns, furnished in compliance with regulations, by owners of vehicles regularly engaged in passenger or goods carriage. Covering operations in the month of November, they show that 13274 vehicles, valued at £1,505,000, were employed in omnibus services, in the carriage of passengers and freight over regular routes between centres, in private commercial work, and in local carrying services. These clearly comprise a field of transport much wider than the direct competition with the railways, and it may take some time •to elucidate the actual extent of that competition. Some general comparisons may, however, be made. The gross receipts, excluding such work as the carriage of cream to dairy factories, were at the rate of £2,000,000 a year; the gross revenue of the railways is about £8,000,000. The passenger traffic by omnibuses and service cars was at the rate of 21,000,000 a year, almost all of it being by omnibuses. Part of the latter represents competition with the railways, as does most of the long-distance traffic. The latter was equivalent to less than 700,000 passengers a year, whereas the railways carry 10,000,000 passengers representing 26,000,000 journeys.' Goods carried by motors were equivalent to 2,328,000 tons a year; the railways carry 7,250,000 tons. There is a remarkable variation in the earnings. Passenger service cars averaged only 9jd a mile, omnibuses llid, freight service vehicles I7id and local carriers' vehicles 21jd. If any of these figures represents a reasonable rate of remuneration, the others are presumably evidence of large profits if the lowest be taken as economic or of the reverse if the highest is the lowest payable figure.