The Dominion. MONDAY, APRIL 11 1910. RAILWAY POLICY.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 788, 11 April 1910, Page 6

The Dominion. MONDAY, APRIL 11 1910. RAILWAY POLICY.

It was not to be expected that our Southern friends would look with equanimity upon the proposal that a North Island Eailways League should be established with the object of ending the unfair and unprofitable policy of spending the bulk of the railways construction funds in the South ■ Island. Three of the Southern metropolitan journals have already burst into heated protest against the "political immorality" and "parochialism" of those who have been moving in the matter. They profess to see in the movement nothing but another example of the greed of Auckland, which will certainly have a busy time if it begins to reply to all the heated references to it in our contemporaries. If the question were really one of Auckland greed against the rest of the Dominion, 'the proposed League would find no support south 'of Tok'aanu; but that is not ;the question at all. The actual situation, put in an uncontentious form, is simply this: .that the South Island has already been developed well up to, and in some places, far beyond, the needs of its population and its trade, while the North Island's railway development is far behind the needs of the community. From the Tear Book for 1909, whioh we have, taken in order to obtain uniformity in our statistics, we find tho following facts respecting the two islands: , "•■"'■ , ' , . , • ■■.-■".■ '■■: North I. South I.

Miles of railways on > March 3i, 1909... 1,140 . 1,542 Population on Janu- ~ ary 1, 1909 . 517,870 442,567 Exports for year 1908 .£9,958,025 ..£6,322,360 These figures, on analysis, show , the. population per mile of railway to be: North Island 454, South island 287. Still' more striking is the result when. the • relation between the railways and exports in each island are considered. The result is shown in this table: , . . '..•'■ "." North, i South. ■ Exports p«r mfle of . ■'. . . railway. • .....,.....'.', £8735 .64100. That, we think, is the'most important line of statistics" that can be quqteiL It-shows quite clearly either (I)'that, if the railways in this_island are fairly adjusted with a view to the productive value of the island to the country as a.whole, the South Island has more than twice as large a railways system as it ought to have, or (2) that, if the South Island has' just the length of railroad deserved by its exports, this island should have more than twice as many miles of road as the South. In order that the two sums in that line of figures should both be £4100, it would be necessary, as anyone may calculate for himself, that the Ndrth Island should have 2185 miles of railway. In other words, if 1045 miles were added tothe railwaysin this isknd (practically doubling the present mileage) the North would make just as good a showing as the South in "export per mile." _ We only quote these figures to indicate how much the South is over-railed in proportion to the North, and how much this island has been neglected. The wonder is not that Wellington supports Auckland in this matter, but that Christchurch and Dunedin do not. ."'. . • ■

It is no reply to these facts to speak, as the Dunedin Star Epeaks, of a "morbid , hallucination," or of "parochialism run mad," ; which is the Press's phrase. Were a shrewd business man who had an option upon c !New Zealand as a private estate to travel through the country, and then to examine the figures, he would promptly decide . thai to make the property a rich one he would spend nearly every penny in the North for some years. We should say that the Government's policy is the product of "a morbid hallucination" did we not know that it is the result of a policy of wirepulling and vote-catching. One or two of the Southern journals' comments call for notice. The ' Press, for example, appears to believe that tho claims of-justice and of national common-sense were for ever rendered null and void when the Southern provinces handed over the Lyttelton Tunnel to tho General Government. What is asked, says tho Press, is that "we in this part of the Dominion, having paid out of our pockets rather more than a million for our railways before handing them over to the .General Government, should he called upon to pay that amount, and another two millions, to the North Island to compensate that part of the country for not having spent its own money in a similar direction." Our contemporary does not mention that for years its railways have been, losing money which we in this part of the Dominion have had to make good; nor that of the money now being spent in the South the people in this island have to provide nearly three-fifths. Anything that was owing to Canterbury was paid long ago. I?i handing over tlieir lines to the General Govern-

ment the people of the South Island made no present to the people on this side of Cook Strait. On the contrary, they did an excellent stroke of business for themselves, inasmuch as they secured that the North Island would have to make up their annual loss. . The Lyltelton Times, which, despite its indignaton, grudgingly admits that the North Island is entitled to a larger share of the railway expenditure than it has been receiving, goes on to make the following statement, which strikes us as being of.great usefulness in a way that was not intended : ' ' , "To suggest that its [the North Island's] representatives in Parliament should band themselves together for the purpose of putting a price,upon their votes betrays a very poor conception of political morality." We shall be delighted when our contemporary joins us in asking for the establishment of that independent control of the railways under which this can be avoided—under which the allocation of expenditure would not be decided by votes on the floor of the House, but by the needs of the ease as decided by independent experts. Our contemporary, torn between its anxiety for' the Government and its concern for local interests, has incautiously exposed the virtue of the Commissioner system which in calmer and happier moments it loves to condemn.