The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1932. ABOUT WASTE

Southland Times, Issue 21831, 7 October 1932, Page 6

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1932. ABOUT WASTE

Having been Minister of Railways, Mr Veitch may pose as an authority on matters rising out of the Department’s operations, but any reputation he lias will not last long if he persists in arguing that the present Railway Board was wrong in recommending the cessation of work on several sections of line then under construction. Some of these lines may be regarded as essential —the one giving Gisborne railway connection with the rest of the North Island for instance —but when these lines were investigated there was indisputable evidence that with their earning capacity at the highest figure possible each would impose a loss on the country for many years to come. In one ease there has been and will continue a shameful waste, but that was brought about by a strange persistence on the part of the Government to which Mr Veitch belonged. The Wharenui-Parnassus line was rushed into construction after 1928, supported by statements and figures which could not stand up to argument for five minutes, and the expenditure on this line was hurried to commit the country as far as possible, thus making a withdrawal impossible. Every investigation showed that this line could not pay and no report showing the prospect of anything less than an annual loss was ever produced by the Government from authoritative railway sources. When all the other lines were discarded as a result of the Commission’s investigations, this precious line was exempt, and special pressure had to be put on the Government of the day to have it included in the list of works on which the Railway Board could make recommendations. The report on this line showed that assuming the Public Works Department’s estimate of the cost to be correct, this line would show a loss if it carried every year all the passengers now using the ferry service, and if its goods traffic were as heavy as that borne by two of the busiest non-main lines in the country. In the face of that discovery the Railway Board, quite properly, decided that there was no excuse for persisting with the line. Every argument, including the fancy one of the psychological effect of completing the connection between Picton and Bluff, has been blown to pieces, and yet even when the evidence of the annual cost was clinched home, there was a shift to Clifford Bay for an alternative. The loss on the WharenuiParnassus section is bad enough, but the responsibility for it must be borne by the Ministry which pressed this work on in the face of opposition, hoping that the amount expended was so great that completion would be forced on an unwilling country. Mr Veitch should let that section, at least, rest in peace; its chronicle is remarkable and valuable only as a record of the extent to which political obstinacy may commit the finances of the country.