PRIVATE RAILWAYS.

Observer, Volume XXXI, Issue 50, 26 August 1911, Page 2

PRIVATE RAILWAYS.

A Timber Company's Design.

IHERE is trouble up at Rotorua over a proposal of the Taupo

Totara Timber Co. to carry its private line of railway (which now extends from Putaruru to Makai) through Wairakei to Taupo, also to acquire Wairakei and the Spa and Taupo Hotels at Taupo, with the apparent object of eventually selling to the Grov/ernment. The Rotorua Chamber of Commerce has risen on its hind legs to protest against the inauguration of any such system, which it considers conducive to "graft." The Chamber points ou± that the rates which the proposed Order-in-Council will allow for freight average 50 per cent, higher than. Government rates, and that the company would be the proprietors of all the hotels in Taupo, of Wairakei with its great natural thermal attractions, of large areas of land in and around Taupo, and incidentally would have control of the timber market in Taupo.

The Rotorua Chamber of Commerce bases its objections to the company's proposals on the fact that the Government has laid down the principle that all public railways in New Zealand should be State-owned. In the past, of course, this principle has not been held inviolate. The old Manawatu line was a case in point. This line was constructed by private enterprise owing to the failure of the Administration then in power to recognise the latent possibilities of the route. But the Manawatu line compared more than favourably with the State service. It was admirably conducted, and although it was a monopoly, the directors very wisely resisted any temptations to exploit the public per medium of extortionate fares and freight-charges. This line has sine& been acquired by the Government, and is now State-owned and Statecontrolled.

Then again there was the case of the Waihi-Paeroa railway, which owed its inception to private enterprise, and which furnishes another illustration of the failure of the Government to always adequately recognise its responsibilities so far as railways are concerned. In this, instance, the railway was an urgent necessity if only from a purely industrial point of view. Paeroa and Waihi lie far from the beaten track perennially pursued by peripatetic tourists. * The immediate objective of the railway was to form proper and up-to-date means of communication between.the goldfields of Waihi and the natural port of -outlet at Paeroa. It was a necessary work,, and the danger of the excessive exploitation of the public was never obtrusive.

But in the case of Taupo Totara Timber Company, the circumstances appear to be materially different from those already cited — always supposing, of course, that the statements of the Rotorua Chamber of Commerce may be regarded as correct. While, as the Chamber points out, " no objection can be taken to any company legitimately expanding its business, when such diverse interests are in the hands of a company which is the sole proprietor of the only railway line in the district, it need hardly be urged that most serious injusice must inevitably be done to any competing industry in the district." There is a good deal in this argument, but it may further be urged that it would be highly unwise for the Government to permit any private company, by means of a private railway line, to acquire what would practically be a proprietary interest in one of the Dominion's most popular tourist resorts. The obvious deduction from the whole affair is that if it would pay the timber company to oonsruct the line, it would pay the Government, and certainly a branch line to Taupo would be a decided acquisition and a valuable asset to the State.