Wellington Independent THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1871.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3196, 11 May 1871, Page 2

Wellington Independent THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1871.

Though experience is a dear school, does it not at the same time teach r?.ost valuable lessons ? Is not the instruction given worth the cost ? Fortunate is the man who has the opportunity and good sense to profit by the experience of others, for he then receives the lessons without having to pay the fees. It is the same with a country as with an individual, though it frequently happens that national pride and prejudice in the one case, and youthful self-conceit in the other, prevent them from profiting as they might do from the lessons which experience imparts. With regard to railways, it would prove a most fortunate circumstance, if our legislators would consent to learn the lessons which the experience of other countries teaches, regarding the mode of construction, the proprietorship of the lines, and the inexpediency of granting land by way of bonus to railway contractors. It will be worth while to endeavor to discover what the experience of other countries establishes with regard to those three important points. A new country does not require expensive stations, a broad guage, heavy rails, and double lines. In point of fact, a railway in such a country can now be made for little more than the cost of a good macadamised road. The first railroad made in Victoria cost £32,000 per mile, and one is now being made there at less than one-sixth of that sum. A contract has just been entered into for making sixty miles of railway in that colony, exclusive of rolling stock and stations, for £5,250 per mile. It could be made for much less if lighter rails were used, and a narrower guage adopted. The " Argus" recently pointed out that "on the cheap and narrow plan we can make two miles of railway for one that we could make on the other, while the working expenses and cost of maintenance would be very little more on the two miles than on the one." Commercially, then, the cheap system must prove immensely more profitable. The railways first constructed in England cost £83,840 per mile; they can now be constructed there for a tenth of that amount. In California, whh wages as hi«,'h or higher than they are in New Zealand, a contract for a narrow gunge railway from San Francisco to one of the mining districts has just been entered into at a price, for construction and rolling stock, of little more than £'2000 per mile. It is true that these cheap railroads are only single lines, but single lines are all that we require in this country. In the United States, nearly two hundred million acres of the public domain have been granted to railway companies as bonuses. It is now found thac these bonuses are unnecessary, as the legiti mate profits of the railways themselves, when made where they are really required, are amply sufficient ; the working of the trans-continental lines giving a profit of forty per cent on the gross receipts, and this chiefly from local traffic. These are astonishing facts, but they are not more astonishing than instructive. While they excite surprise that so profitable an undertaking as our Northern railway has yet to be commenced, they still more forcibly indicate how fortunate is the circumstance that its commencement has been delayed until its construction can be effected at a sixth of the cost that would have been incurred, had it been proceeded with before we had had the opportunity of acquiring the lessons taught by the experience of other countries on tho subject. But this experience teaches still more important, atill more valuable lessons from which, if we are wise, we shall profit. We have frequently pointed out that all works of nationul importance too great for private capital and enterprise to accomplish, must be undertaken by the State, if undertaken at all ; and that ull works which cannot, on the one hand, be executed without granting a monopoly aud creating a "dangerous corporation, or which, on the other, will occasion ruinous competition and a fearful waste of capital, ought to be undertaken by the Government The growth of such corporations we observed is, in a free country, inimical to good Government and fatal to the liberties of a people. It will not be well, we said, to allow our main arteries of communication to be come the private property of any body of citizens. It will be still more impolitic to grant to any exclusive body a virtual monopoly of all the goods and passenger traffio of the colony. The evils which may result to the State from the creation of such a body cannot be over estimated; and they will prove

none the less, but all the more, dangerous by not being at first felt, seen, and recognised. The truth and force of these remarks have been forcibly illustrated by what is now taking place in America. In our issue of April 29th we published an extract from the " New York Herald," pointing out the dangerous and overbearing power of the railway corporations in the United States. In the " Westminster Keview" for January there is an able article on the same subject. The writer says :— ' Already three of the States are as much controlled in their political, financial, and commercial interests by railways within their borders, as the people in feudal times were controlled by the barou in his castle." The aggregate capital embarked in railways in the United States is estimated at four hundred million pounds, but the public have not derived any of the advantages which were anticipated from the construction, at a fearful waste of money, of rival lines ; for the rival companies very early saw that competition would be disastrous to their own interests, and they at onoe adopted measures to prevent it. In England railways at present are the property of private companies ; but tbis would never have happened, as her statesmen now admit, had they foreseen what magnitude they would attain, and what evils would arise from the chief thoroughfares of the kingdom becoming private property. In France arrangements have been made by which j all the railways in that country will become, in a given time, and on easy terms, national property. Will New Zealand be wise if she refuse to profit by the lessons which the experience of those countries inculcates ? But we not only see, after reading these lessons, the best and cheapest mode of constructing railways, and the danger which results from allowing them to become private property, but we discover also that the giving away the public lands to railway companies and contractors is an unnecessary and wasteful expedient which ought to be avoided. An elaborate report has just been issued by the United States Land Department which strongly recommends the discontinuance of land grants to railway companies, as being in the first place unnecessary, and in the second place as tending to encourage undue costliness in the price of railway construction, and to foster useless speculation. The land being given in the immediate vicinity of the railway, and the land at a distance laboring under great disadvantages in comparison, the railway company makes a large profit on its sale, in addition to the profits derived from the railway itself, while it has the effect of preventing the back country from being settled. The advantages of the railway, in fact, are by this arrangement chiefly conferred on railway companies in which the people and the State do not participate io the extent they otherwise would do. Whatever arrangements may be made in this colony for the construction of railways, care should be 'taken to insure to the State every legitimate advantage it can obtain by enhancing, at its own risk and cost, the value of private property through which they are made to run ; and to insure, at the same time, the profits to itself from the sale of the public lands which those railways will open up for settlement, It can mortgage both land and railway, if necessary, as security for the capital loaned and invested ; but it must grant neither to a corporation whioh may become more powerful than itbelf. If we adopt those precautions, which the experience of other countries shews to be necessary, the railway department, like the General Post Office at home, may prove a source of revenue to the State, while conferring untold advantages on the community.

ThefiE is perhaps no question that has beenso well, and, on the whole, so temperately argued as the Early < losing movement. It is a remarkable fact that in whatever to vn it has been introduced it has kept its hold. There has been no going back to late hours. We are glad to see that in Wellington it pronrses to be equally successful. We hear a few of the old arguments about the convenience of the working men, and the bad use the young men will make of the leisure thus acquired, but these have been so often answered that it is scarcely necessary to refer to them. Unless the working men in Wellington can be shown to be differently situated from the working men of Dunedin and other towns that have adopted the Early Closing movement, there is nothing in the objection. Wherein does this difference consist ? Again, unless it can be shown thafc there is some special inherent depravity in the young men employed in the shops of Wellington, the objection that tbey will misuse the leisure early closing gives them falls to the ground. Does a draper's assistant, for instance, who was accustomed in Dunedin to put up the shutters at six o'clock, and ut seven go to the lecture room or gymnasium, does he all atonce,bysome malignant influence fall from virtue ! when he comes to Welliugton ? Does he become vicious as he becomss acclimatised ? What, then, are we to think of our old settlers of thirty years standing ? Or, does this mysterious mora] malady, like the fevers of tropical countries,only seize upon" new chums?" We think no ono will be foolhardy enough, after the success of the Young Men's Associations in Dunedin and Auckland, to say anything derogatory to the character of the young men of the colony. We believe that they are as a rule superior to those similarly en gaged at home, and we believe that nothing conti ibutes more to their moral and physical and intellectual improve, ment than this very movement. All honor, then, to those gentlemen in Wei lington who have lent the influence of their names to this good cause ! We shall be glad to learn that it meets with the success that it deserves. We have received several letters on the subject, likely only to lead to opposition,

and perhaps bitter controversy ; and in the interest of the cause itself we judged it better to refuse their insertion. We still think that in so doing we exercised a wise discretion. Indeed, from all we can learn, the movement has been fully successful, and little direct opposition to it now exists. In our columns elsewhere will , be found a compilation of items from the latest home papers, showing the bitter struggles now going on between employers and employed, and amongst these will be found a very riotous mode of carrying out this Early Closing movement in Dumfries, the capital of the south of Scotland. It is gratifying to contrast with this the orderly and respectable proceedings of the Wellington Early Closing Association. ————— _———~— ■_—■—»«*■— —~-"