The Evening Star MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1873

Evening Star, Issue 3358, 24 November 1873, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1873

The Governor’s visit to Canterbury opened up opportunity for a few remarks by the Honorable Mr Vogel, which deserve more consideration than a mere passing glance. Avoiding that which is strictly political in the reference he made to the railway system he has been mainly instrumental in initiating, he took occasion to draw attention to what he he considered should be the true light in which railways should be regarded. “ What is in a name !” he asked ; and, replying to his own question, he said he considered there was “ much.” He then proceeded to illustrate this position by pointing out how mere names may influence thought, through the ideas associated with them. This is a law of the human mind that acts detrimentally to human progress, when not subjected to the corrective influence of reflection. The likenesses are plain, but the differences are kept out of sight. The word suggests resemblances : the mind has to discover the differences. Mr Vogel considers it unfortunate that the best and cheapest means for internal communication are called “railroads,” because with that term is associated the recollection of largo compensation to landholders, expensive parliamentary investigations, share speculation, low dividends, ami bubble companies.. In a very few word she endeavored to dissociate those ideas that were merely accidental adjuncts, from tlie practical bearing of the thing itself. Doing justice to the foresight of Mr Moorhouse, to whom he attributed the credit of beginning the railway system in New Zealand, he showed that that gentleman entertained more statesmanlike views of a railway system, than the traditional ideas imported from Great Britain with the colonists. The great difficulty to be overcome in railway construction is the often repeated question, “Will it pay V' Yet who ever asks regarding a macadamised road, “ Will it pay f’ Mr Vogel pointed out that it is thought quite sufficient return, if the tolls on a metalled road pay for the maintenance of it; and we may add that, if they do not, no difficulty is experienced in inducing District and Central Road Boards to tax property to supplement the deficiency. But if a railway is to be made, which will be more effectual in opening up the country than fifty macadamised roads at twenty times its cost, the whole community wakes up to a sudden fit of economy, and asks “ Will it pay ?” Owners of property who provide two or four-horse teams, with each a driver, to draw a couple’ of tons of produce at the rate of twenty miles a-day, with oats at four shillings a bushel, and wages seventy pounds a-year exclusive of rations, look aghast at the idea of, compared with the cost they are at, a trifling road rate which would enable them to do withonehorse where they now employ four • one cart, where to do the same work they would need ten ; and one man where they employ half-a-dozen. They are willing enough to use the road if it is made for them at the public expense j but when it is proposed that the district should be made responsible for the interest, they cry, “ It is a railroad ; will it pay ?” This is the burden of the speeches of the Mon HO class, who unluckily have found ho much support in the Legislative Council. “ Will it pay ?” is the salve for their consciences in thwarting every f aideavor to facilitate the construction of 1 (ranch railways by means of those difterout Acts which, session after session, have been rejected by them, “ Will it pay f is supposed to be the unanswerable question that will enlist the whole community on their side. They look upon jt as a most coaviaciug argu*

meut, equal in its power on the popular mind, to reduction of expenditure, reduction in the pay of Government officers, or any other claptrap got up for special occasions. It is time that this anile view of a railroad system was dismissed. How is it that macadamised roads and district roads pay ? Simply through giving access to property, affording means of transport of goods, saving labor hy reducing the number of cattle necessary for haulage of conveyances, reducing the cost of carriage through saving of time, rendering possible the use of lighter and roomier vehicles, and giving access to available markets for produce. To secure these advantages, the Monros and Millers, the sqattocracy and clodocracy do not object to pay for metalled roads, although their predecessors in Great Britain, only forty-five years ago, were nearly as much oppposed to the construction of macadamised roads as they are to railroads. Engineers, rural turnpike trustees, farmers and graziers, opposed Mr Macadam's plan ; were loud in their condemnation of summer’s dust and winter’s mud ; and ill the towns they pointed to the great expense of keeping macadamised roads iu repair, as compared with the old method of paving with boulders. We have before us a return of the cost, outlay for maintenance for one year, and expense of watering the macadamised road between Regent street, Whitehall, and Palace Yard, London, some nine years after the adoption of the system. Its length was 2,010 yards, and its superficies 45,251 square yards. The formation cost £0,055, and metalling £6,787 —together, £1.2,842 ; while the cost of repairs in one year amounted to £4,000, and the watering to £628 an outlay of two shillings a square yard. As a matter of curiosity the figures are interesting, and they do well to put side by side with the cost of construction and maintenance of that dangerous sixty miles of bad road engineering between Dunedin and the Clutha. In spite,of prejudice, Mr Macadam’s smooth roads were made, and conveyances were adapted to them, without the question ever being asked, “ Will it pay ?” There had been no share speculation connected with them. The Government had not instituted inquiries as to probable traffic returns, nor prescribed that the road Should be constructed through private enterprise as private speculations. The different Turnpike Trusts followed the stream, and one after another covered the sea gravel or natural bottom with broken ’road metal. They never asked “Will it pay?” because they felt the necessity for having the best roads they could obtain ; and now that cheaper and better have been devised, the answer should be obvious when “ Will it pay?” is asked :—“ It paid to construct bad roads ; it paid better to construct improved roads, and to maintain them at much heavier cost; and therefore it will pay very much better, both directly and indirectly, to construct the best roads at much lighter cost of maintenance and formation in proportion to their utility, even if the returns fail for a few years to realise the interest.”