THE RAILWAY YEAR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23954, 2 May 1941, Page 6

THE RAILWAY YEAR

The final accounts for the railway year 19 H) 11, which have just been issued, show little difference in the main items compared with the tentative figures announced by the Minister last week. The net revenue of £ 1,691,644 is, as he pointed out, the highest in the 16 years during which the present method of accounting has been in force. It exceeds the previous best, £1,632,793 in 1925-26, by £61,851 ; but the net yield 16 years ago was from a gross income of £8,101,221, compared with £11.160,518 in the year just closed. No doubt services to the public have been improved in the meantime, but hardly to the extent of the difference in the figures; nor has the department been content with lower fares and freights. While an exact comparison of schedules is not possible, it must be remembered that all charges to railway users were increased by 10 per cent at the end of 1938. In a discussion of the results the Minister fairly stated the various factors likely to have influenced the returns for the year just closed, giving due weight to amount of traffic directly and indirectly due to war conditions. This must have been considerable. But with all allowance for the improved return it is still impossible to ignore certain facts which persist. The net revenue for 1940-41 at £1,694,644 is substantially short of tli3 interest charge of £2,575,196 on a working capital of £63,000,000 shown in the accounts for 1939-40. How it will measure up to the equivalent figures for the year in which it was earned is not yet known, but there is bound to have been more capital cost come to charge in the past 12 months, and little reason to expect an improvement on the 1.96 per cent interest earned the preceding year. The demand for a cessation of expenditure on new construction leaps to the eye from these figures.