THE RAILWAYS YEAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21164, 22 April 1932, Page 8

THE RAILWAYS YEAR.

Only outstanding items in the railMays accounts for the year ended oil Ala rob 31 are contained in the statement the general manager. Mr. P. G. I'oussell, has made. Yet they are sufficient to indicate several interesting features of the position. The net revenue has fallen short of the Budget forecast, £930,000, by ,£02.000. Expectations have been much more nearly realised than in I he. previous year when an estimate of £1,380.000 was followed by a realisation of £689,000, or less than half of the figure predicted. The. lorecast for 1931-32 was more moderate, and the result has been better, absolutely as well as relatively. Mr. Roussell remarks that the revenue, was £1,063,000 less than for the previous year, but that this has been more than offset by the reduction in expenditure. The point deserves emphasis, for it is the outstanding feature of the year's operations : and the mariner in which it has come about is even more interesting than the fact itself. From the very beginning last April the decline in gross revenue was apparent, and it' has continued period by period ever since. Until the return for the four weeks ended October 10 the prospect was for a worse year than 1930-31. There were some fluctuations, the most notable exception to the general rule of retrogression being a decided improvement for the June period compared with the corresponding return in the previous year. For all that, previous to the

September 12-October 10 period the year showed a net loss of £22,399 compared with the equivalent portion of 1930-31. Board management began in June. On September 20 a reduced scale of passenger fares came into operation. Meantime, economy measures had been applied, and by October they began to show results. The return for the four weeks ended October 10 showed a gain of £22,456 compared with the year before. It is by the steady maintenance of that movement that the improvement of £149,000 over 1930-31 has been achieved. Reduction of expenses has been the dominant factor. The result is a justification of the change to board control, an object lesson in the benefits of business-like management, and suggests that there must be great unexplored fields for the exercise of economy in other Government departments. Tt also sharpens anticipation of what the railways will show after a complete year of the new form of control.