THE Evening Star. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1869.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1981, 10 September 1869, Page 2

THE Evening Star. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1869.

Our contemporary the Daily Times favors the public this morning with one of those pleasant essays that prove the surpassing genius of the writer. Too politic to let the occasion slip for saying something, he is too cautious to commit himself to an opinion that might offend, or which would materially prevent the enunciation of an opposite theory in time to come. The subject is the Port Chalmers Railway. In his exordium we were prepared to expect the cordial and earnest co-operation of the writer in forwarding so muchneeded a work; but after a while the timid advocacy is tinctured with rc-

gret that the thing had not been done before; because now the money expended in improving the Port and Harbor of Dunedin, it is affirmed, will be wasted ; and a little further dash of cold water is thrown upon the scheme by insinuating a doubt as to its proving a paying speculation. Tnen comes another nail to he driven into its coffin, forged by an anonymous writer, who, a few days bock, induced the Times to publish an absurd letter asserting that railways cannot compete with canals. In fact, although our contemporary advocates the construction of the railway, he does so in the timid manner of a lady giving her consent; “Yes; but I “ really do not know that I am doing “ right.” It may be as well to dispose of two of the objections, which ma\ be very briefly and curtly dismissed. With regard to a railway not holding its own against water communication, it is simply not true, even with the expensively constructed railways of the United Kingdom. The ruinous expenditure into which companies there have been led, has arisen from circumstances that can have no parallel here, and have really had nothing to do with the cost of construction. Had that been the only outlay, all the railways of Great Britain would have yielded splendid revenues. But the writer who made that bold assertion, seems not to be aware that the Manchester and Liverpool line was constructed to avoid the delay, loss, and inconvenience of canal communication, and that the most spendid estuary and river system in Great Britain —the Humber, with its branching navigable streams, free of dues, communicating with the dense populations of the manufacturing districts by means of canals, was found inefficient compared with the railway system. In order to overcome the disadvantages of river and canal traffic, the Hull and Selby line was formed, with other lines connecting Goole, Gainsborough, and other towns In Lincolnshire with the arterial railways leading to Nottingham, Leeds, Bradford, and the other large _ manufacturing towns of the West Riding and Lancashire. Yet all these places had the minor advantage of canal or river communication. With regard to the paying character of the Port Chalmers railway the shareholders need not trouble themselves. Eight per cent, interest is guaranteed by the Provincial Government on the security of the Jetty dues. The simple guarantee of the Government of the Province ought and would no doubt have been sufficient of itself. It is not the fashion for British representative governments to repudiate engagements ; but to remove every doubt and to prevent cavil, tln'o i»S guarded ngaiii.it by appropriating from the Jetty and Wharfage dues a sum equal to eight per cent, interest on the outlay, assuming that the cost does not exceed LIOO,OOO. Thfs is to be placed to a separate account “to be called the ‘Port Chalmers “ Railway Account’ ” ; and this guarantee of eight per cent, is to continue fifteen years. The Daily Times assumes that “the financial prospects “ of this undertaking—as of all under- “ takings of the kind—are of course “ open to question; and it is not sur- “ prising that arguments should be “ brought forward to shew that the “ prospects are bad.” Surely he who penned that doubting paragraph could not have weighed its import. If he means to say that those who take shares will not be secured interest for their money, we have shewn that for fifteen years they are secured a higher rate of interest than they could obtain by investment in any Government Stock, British, Foreign, or Colonial. Neither is there to be any delay, for that interest “ is to be dated, from the cem- “ mencement of such railway works.” It is not therefore a risk. No preliminary waiting for the line being made, and the traffic growing is necessary,— no risk is to be incurred as in laying money out in mining. It is safer as an investment than a mortgage, and more desirable than Government Stock, because at better interest. If, on the other hand, the Daily Times means that the Province may be a loser by its construction, we reply unhesitatingly that the community, as a whole, will be benefited both directly and indirectly. Professor Heabne, classing railways among the social contrivances to promote organisation, remarks that through their instrumentality “less capital is “ in transit, less capital is kept idle in “ superfluous stock. Less time is “ spent in travelling. New markets “ are opened, and in old markets prices “ are equalised. It has been found “ that on the opening of a line for pas- “ senger traffic between two places, the “ amount of travelling between the ex- “ tremities of the line has been gene- “ rally quadrupled. On the short line “ between Liverpool and Manchester “ the annual saving to the public, irre- “ spective of time and of the extra gain “ to the proprietors, is estimated at “ about a quarter of a million of money. “ As regards the increased facility of “ communication, and the consequent

“ saving to the traveller of time and “ money, a curious example is given by ■ “Mr Disraeli. Mr Robert Weale, “an Assistant Poor Law Commis- “ sioner, travelled during twelve years, j “ in tlie performance of his official duties, j “ 99,607 miles : of this distance 69,000 | “ miles were by coach, at an average j “ cost of Is 6|d; and 30,000 by rail, | “at an average cost of 3|d. If the “ whole distance bad been done by rail, “ it would have taken one year, thirty “ weeks, and six days; if V>y coach, “ four years, thirty-nine weeks, and one “ day. Thus Mr Weale would have “ saved three and a-half years ox his “ life, and the country £5,390 in tra- “ veiling expenses alone, irrespective “ of his salary during the time he was “ engaged in travelling.” What is true on a large scale at Home, with the enormous outlay incurred, is equally applicable to our smaller requirements here. Rut with this difference in favor of the Port Chalmers Railway Company; they cannot lose, because they virtually run no risk. The companies at Home, in some instances, have lost, because they paid too much for railway construction.