BENEFITS OF RAILWAYS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1073, 10 September 1930, Page 7

BENEFITS OF RAILWAYS

LOCAL SUPPORT URGED MR. STERLING’S OPINION From Our Own Correspondent TAURANGA, Tuesday. In a letter to the Tauranga Chamber of Commerce the general manager 1 of railways, Mr. 11. H. Sterling, j stressed the need of support for the ! East Coast railways. lie said the ad- j vantage to a district of a railway, was ! its effect on values and In reducin’g the ! costs of transport, and this had been | clearly shown in the Bay of Plenty, j Mr. Sterling said he thought it could I scarcely bo doubted that as the load of taxation became heavier, the principle of making those pay who got the benefit would have to be increasingly recognised and would probably take the form of demands for rating areas, or some such form of local taxation, in order to place the burden where the benefit was. The action of the Tauranga Chamber in stirring up the public mind in the Bay of Plenty was in the right direction. So far as his department i was concerned, it would rather give I full services than meagre services. ! Whatever service was given, however, t was in the last analysis determined by the wants of the people, as ex- j pressed in tlieir patronage of the rail- j way system. The question was, there- I fore, one that rested entirely in the j hands of the people themselves and not, as was so often too readily concluded, in the hands of those wjio J might for the time being be controlling the railways. '