RAILWAYS NORTH AND SOUTH.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 816, 13 May 1910, Page 4

RAILWAYS NORTH AND SOUTH.

In his contribution to the controversy respecting the division of public expenditure between the North Island and the South, Mb. FowLDS carries on the tradition of Ministerial inconsistency that clings to this old topic. Years ago Mr. Samuel Vaile, the pioneer of the movement for justice to tho North, and still one of the most effective writers on the subject, used to show up thy glaring discrepancies between the figures advanced by Mn. Seddon and those of his colleagues. Tlinre are just the same discrepancies today. Mr. It. M'Kenzie, after his manner, refuses to admit a grain of truth or reason in the complaint that the North Island is most unfairly treated in tho matter of railway construction. He quotes masses of figures so grotesquely and hopelessly out of any sort of relation to the facts as to beggar criticism, and he says point blank that there is no ground for complaint, that more money is being spent on construction in- this islan-d tnan in the South, i

Mr. Founds has quite a different story to 1011. He admits that "in the matter of railway expenditure a good deal has yet to he done before an equilibrium can be established between the two islands. He even goes so far as to assure us that •■every South Island member is impressed by the fact that in view of the population, production, and the amount of taxation contributed the North must in future of necessity receive a larger proportion of expenditure for railway development." it is satisfactory to know that Mn. Fowi.ds, although he drags in roads, bridges, and public buildings in his anxiety to do what he can for his colleagues, will "not be a party to the continuance' , of the unfair allotments of railway expenditure .that have been complained of. It is also to Mr. ]''ow%j)s's credit that he did attempt a sort of defence of last year's allocation of railway construction expenditure. "Special circumstances,'' in the shape of almost conipletcd sections in the South "appeared to him to be sufficient to justify the appropriations made." We do not consider them a sufficient justification, but we do not doubt that Mb. Fowlds \s quite sincere on this point.

Iu the meantime the railway figures for the year 3909-10 are at last made available through last night's Gazette, and, as we predicted every four weeks during the past year, they demonstrate beyond the possibility of question the folly of spending money at present on railway construction"' in the South. Our readers will ])robably remember that during the past year onn of the terial journals in the South regularly.' attacked our monthly discussions, of the figures in the Gazette. It (parrelled with us when, in our desire to state the position in the only clear fashion, we took past annual totals, and declared that we should take current monthly returns. _ When we took monthly returns it again assailed our honesty: qiily long periods would do it. It made all Kinds of curious calculations which it alleged wero triumphant proofs that the South. Island railways earned more, .absolutely and in relation to mileage, than the North Island lines. It informed its public that the year would end up with a balance, in favour of ■ the South. And all the time it charged us with cooking the statistics. Now, what are tho facts as they are given in the Gazette ? They confirm in the moat striking manner possible every statement we have made. They show that, as we predicted, tho lines in this island, which fell behind in the ivinter, would as usual begin to proclaim the superiority of this island is a railroad field when spring came, ind would end up, not merely with a relative, But with an absolute, balxnce against the South. Here, sumTiarised, is the result of the year's working:

. Expen- Excess of Revenue, diture. Revenue. ■'.fi £ £ North .... 1,6U,'87i 1,008,307 510,567 South .... 1,634,915 1,101,167 533,748 Tho net profit on working, therefore, was greater in the North than in the South, even though it came from only 1135 miles of rail as against 1574 miles in the South. The immense superiority of this island in earning power is apparent when we consider the net return ne'r mile:

Net , Net return lieveniio. Miles of por mile. ,•'..•. £ Line. £ s. d. North .., i -516,567 1,135 181 11 1 South 533,71s , 1.574; 310 ;9 1 Every mile of railway in this island, that.is to say, earns, on the average, £136 moro, or nearly 40 per cent, more, than an average mile of railway in the South. To show the same return per mile as in the North, the not revenue from the Southern lines would require to be over £757,900. Tho Southern system. fell short of this figure? by over £220,000. Hardly loss striking is the result when we consider the net return per cent, on capital (opened and unopened lines): . ■ , Capital. Net Net cost. revenue return <B £ per ,cent. North ... 13,040,612 516,507 4.10 South ... 15,817,951 i 533.74S 3.37 Mn. Miliar has stated that tho interest charges to be met out of the net return average 3.8 per cent. The North Island lines thus paid their way and something over, while the South Island lines failed to make ends meet, i The exact position, when worked out on the basis of Mn. Millar's statement as to the inter, est, is very interesting. It amounts to this,' that the users of tho rail- j ways in this island paid for all they got, including tho interest charges, and paid £50,858 extra into tho Treasury. The users of the .Southern lines, on tho other hand, abstracted £08,017 from the Treasury. It is obvious that this island has bled for the benefit of its Southern friends. It is high time that a North Island Railway League was established in the interests of justice and of national common-sense.