“EFFECTS” OF STATE RAILWAY POLICY.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21127, 29 August 1938, Page 6

“EFFECTS” OF STATE RAILWAY POLICY.

Although it is not clear from the Railways report for the year ended March last, just what the Minister meant when he declared that “it may reasonably be claimed that in the past two years the New Zealand Railways have come well out of the doldrums into the fair tradewind of present day conditions, and that the Government’s policy has been the power which has helped them to achieve these results,” the official figures for the most recent four-weekly period would seem to suggest that the results now being achieved certainly reveal the effect of the Government’s policy in relation to the working of the railways. The plain fact remains, in spite of Ministerial assurances and cleverly-coloured broadcast propaganda, the railways under exclusive political control are becoming an ever-increasing burden on the general taxpayer. It is true, as the Minister, in his annual Railways Statement claims, that the Government’s policy has been the power which has helped the railways to achieve these results! But what are these results? An abstract of railway working accounts gazetted last Thursday covering the four-weekly period ending July 23, shows that the gross railway revenue for that four weeks was £585,516, which is £3,264 more than a year ago. Running expenditure increased by £61,639 to £666,787. The working loss of £81,271, it will be admitted, compares most unfavourably with a loss of £22,897, during the corresponding period last year. For the period from April 1 to July 23, the net revenue—the amount earned by the railways to meet interest on capital invested—was £44,114, compared with £171,500 last year, a decrease of £127,386. Some idea of the results the Government’s policy has helped to achieve in railway management, will be gained if it is borne in mind that in the period, covering nearly one-third of the current year, namely between April 1 to July 23 this year, the net revenue earned by the railways was, as the official returns show, only £41,114 compared with £171,500 last year which was the lowest for nearly twenty years. These “results,” we are told by the Minister of Railways, have been achieved when trading and the conditions of the country were generally favourable for the operation of the railways and without any increase in the rates for passengers or goods during the two years of politicallycontrolled railways services. Of course not! The shrinkage in net revenue, it may be mentioned in passing, is being made up by the general taxpayer who is being called upon to pay the piper in an ever increasing ratio for the “results” the Government’s policy has helped the railways to achieve, namely an uninterrupted shrinkage in net revenue earned by a State service that has gained au almost absolute monopoly in the transport business and these losses are being paid by the general taxpayer!