THE RAILWAY REVENUE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9389, 31 March 1892, Page 2

THE RAILWAY REVENUE.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) Wellington, March 30. The official returns of revenue and expenditure on the Government railways, which will be gazetted to-morrow, show that the gross receipts up to the end of February, i.e., 11 months of the financial year, had not quite caught up to last year's results, the total being L 998.701 as against L 1,000,482, or a difference of L 9781 on the wrong side. This shortcoming is due almost exclusively to deficiencies in three important branches of traffic—viz., grain and live stock, which show a falling off of 15per cent., and merchandise, in which the decrease is nearly 5r per cent. On the other hand there are increases in the passenger and mineral traffic to' the extent of 5 and 6 per cent, respectively. The falling off is virtually confined to the HurunuiBluff hne, which shows the very large falling off of L 4-3.000 in receipts compared with the previous year. The other lines exhibit an aggregate improvement of L 34-.000. The total expenditure is slightly less than that of the corresponding period last year—the difference is only L 567. The net profit for the 11 months was L 358.000, as against L 367.000 for the relative period of 1890-91. Some items have to come in at the end of the year which wiU probably pull up the net returns somewhat.