THE RAILWAY REVENUE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1989, 7 April 1892, Page 17

THE RAILWAY REVENUE.

The official returns of revenue and expenditure on the Government rail ways, 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— via., grain and live stock, which show a falling off of 15 per cent. , and merchandise, in which the decrease is nearly 5 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 line, which shows the very large falling off of L 43.000 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 will probably pull up the net returns somewhat. March 31.