EXPENSIVE RAILWAYS

Taranaki Daily News, 14 February 1933, Page 12

EXPENSIVE RAILWAYS

NEW ZEALAND SYSTEM BURDEN OF LARGE DEBT. REPAYMENT OF PRINCIPAL. ■ The opinion that Great Britain could not wash its hands of its responsibility to the colonies in transport policy, and the question of investors having to accept a composition from the colonies in respect of loans invested in railways, are expressed by Mr. Rees Jeffreys in a paper, “Transport Problems of the Empire,” read at the Royal Society of Arts in November. Mr. Jeffreys is chairman of the Roads Improvement Association and a member of the departmental committee on the regulation and taxation of road vehicles, in addition to other executive positions in connection with transport. .

“Transport conditions in New Zealand, which I had an opportunity of investigating personally two years ago,” Mr. Jeffreys stated, “differ from those of Canada, South Africa and Australia by reason of the fact that no part of the country is more than 100 miles from the sea. Continental conditions do not obtain. There is no long railway haul like that from Quebec to Vancouver, or from Sydney to Perth; or from Johannesburg to Capetown.

“New Zealand has no great mining area a long distance from the coast, like the gold mines of the Transvaal, or the copper mines of Rhodesia, or the coal mines of Pennsylvania. It has spent £70,000,000 in buildirig railways, many of which are now seen to have been unnecessary. New Zealand is rich in harbours. A good system of roads and motor transport, coupled with coastal steamships and a minimum of railways, would have solved the problems of transport morie wisely and economically. It is saddled with an expensive railway system much greater than its needs, and which may prove a millstone .about its neck. “Great Britain, cannot, wash its hands of its * responsibility to the colonies and Dominions in transport policy. Nearly all are over-railed and under-roaded. Great Britain has gone out to sell railways and they have bought on our advice, and she has lent them money to build those railways. So long as Great' Britain could book sufficiently large, orders for rails, and locomotives the country was prepared to give loans on tempting terms, and even the benefit of the Trades Facilities Act, without inquiring whether the railway in question would pay. . “The moneys the Dominions and colonies owe to this country for their railways are generally greatly in excess of the present capital value of the railways. The Governments of the Empire owning these railways are trying every means to earn a return bn the railway expenditure. As one colonial' stated, ‘We are engaged in killing the road goose which lays the taxation egg to keep alive the barren railway hen.’, “I cannot see Australia and New Zealand, for example, continuing to pay interest on bon-owed moneys which, are not now represented by tangible assets, or to repay the principal when this country ceases from any cause' to’ le'nd them money. The British investor, is ‘carrying the' railway baby,’ and one day may be left with it.”