RAILWAYS: THEIR COST AND PROFIT.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVIII, Issue 1861, 28 April 1863, Page 3

RAILWAYS: THEIR COST AND PROFIT.

The Westminister Review of October contains an article of great', interest under this heading. We have extracted a few passages which bear more particularly upon our own case : — " It should be clearly understood that colonial linos are usually worked at a loss for several years. Yet the colony is enriched by them, and the fact of a loss being certain is no argument against making the lines. If an English railway run through a district wherein there are no towns, little trade, and few inhabitants, the shareholders need never hope to receive any dividends. But make a railway in a rising colony under the same conditions, and in a few years the untilled waste will laugh with harvest, the silent neighbourhood became noisy with inhabitants ; the line will first create a traffic and then profit by it. Perhaps the most unsuccessful undertaking ot the day is the Grand Trunk Eailway of Canada. It has been made fifty years too soon for profit, but not a day too soon for the province. The Canadian Government ought either too have made the line in the first instance, or else, like the Government of Victoria, have borrowed money in * the London market to purchase the line from the company. The colony of Victoria has acted with greater foresight and fairness. Nearly all the lines in that colony have been purchased by the Government. Some of them have been made at a large cost, on account of labour being scarce, the price of importhe'materials high, and the engineering difficulties ver>\ great. Two hundred and fifty miles of rail have been constructed, at an outlay of thirtyfive thousand pounds per mile, including, rolling slock and stations. In order to acquire and complete these li^es, the colony hasbiirdehed'itselfwith a debt of eight millions eight hundred thousand pounds, on whmh it has to pay five hundred and seven thousand pounds for interest. Though the sum be a large one, yet the same amount could not have been more judiciously, and, as. experience will

doubtless show, more profitably expended. The late Lord Dalhousie, with a sagacity which cannot be too highly applauded, left no efforts untried to introduce a complete By stem of railway communication throughout India. As an inducement to private companies to take the works in hand, the Indian government guaranteed interest at the rate of five per cent on the capital expended by them with its sanction. There cannot be any question about the liberality of that Government although, itnaay be disputed whether it has always acted with wiadoin. We think ifc would have been better to have selected less costly models for these railways. In so choosing, the promoters of these railways have shown the usual fondness of Englishmen for the " grand style." As a people we are singularly averse to adopting temporary expedients, no matter how well these expedients may answer. Had the American, in place of the English system of railway been adopted for . India, that country would have been covered with lines in a much shorter time, and at a much less expense than is now possible. American railwaya are generally admitted to be cheap, but are sneered at as being badly constructed. Yet they serve all ■, the purposes of traffic, and what is more, are re? I munerative investments. At one time they were detestable. The rails were flat pieces of iron, spiked down on longitudinal timbers. In the course of time the spikes worked loose, and tho rails became bent up at the points of connexian. Those bent-up rails were commonly termed • snakes' heads," and they well deserved their nickname, for it was a frequent occurrence for the end of a rail to perforate a passing carriage, and impale an unhappy passenger. But these are things of the past, and Americans can boast cf having constructed very serviceable railwaya at an average cost ia round numbers of eight thousand pounds per mile. Sensible persoas may retard, but cannot hinder the commenoment of any undertaking in which the human race has an" interest, and by which the whole ( world will be benefited, To complain that such I persons exist, is equivalent to complaining that in ! all ages and clitn es men occupy high positions and wield large powers, who are faint-hearted, short-sighted, ignorant and obstinate. Wherever railways are constructed, whether they cross the American continent and link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, or line the banks of the Thames, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates, traverse the burniug plains of Hindostan or tha snows of Siberia, the maxim enunciated by Mr Pease, of Darlington, when railways were only experiments, on tho success of which he bad risked his fortune, will equally hold good, and remain unquestionable evidence of his largeness of view andaoundness of judgment — "Let the country but make the railroads, and the railroads will make the oountry."