The Evening Star. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1876.

Evening Star, Issue 4291, 27 November 1876, Page 2

The Evening Star. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1876.

The last annual report of the Commissioner of Railways for Victoria conveys some instructive information about the railway system of that Colony, and enables us to draw comparisons between its exertions and our own efforts at railway making. Up to the 30th June, 1576, Victoria had spent £13,239,40-1 on the construction of railways, and, as the result of this liberal outlay, possessed GlB miles of line in full work and properly equipped, which had therefore cost, roughly speakiug, £21,420 a mile. This is a heavy expenditure, to which two causes have contributed : First, most of the Victorian lines are of a broader gauge, and have been built iu a more substantial manner than those of New Zealand ; in fact, for a long while, the Heme railways were taken as a pattern ; and secondly, when the work of railway construction was begun, labor was enormously dear. It was observed by Sir Georue Bowen, on the occasion of the Avoca railway being opened recently, that in the early days of the Colony the price of labor was so high that railways cost as much as £47,000 a mile. He might have added—including cost of jobbery. An expenditure of this kind would of course materially raise the average cost of the whole of the lines. Labor has since fallen, and a different system of construction has been adopted, so that it is anticipated the lines now under contract or in contemplation will be made for £6,000 a mile, which is about the average cost of the New Zealand lines. The comparison between the performances of the two colonies is quite as favorable to New Zealand in another respect. There were, as we have said, 018 miles of line open for traffic in Victoria on the 30th of last June. From tiie report of Mr Richardson, the Minister for Public Works, it appears that on the same date, 549 miles of railway, which had been constructed in New Zealand by the General Government, were open for traffic ; and, in addition, there were the Provincial lines, about 60 miles in length we believe, making to.cjeth er a total mileage nearly equal uO that of Victoria, although that Colony has double the population of New Zealand. Sir Geoucie Bowen conveniently overlooked this fact in a striking passage of the speech already referred to, which ran thus :—"The people of Victoria will soon possess facilities for railway travelling with which no country can compare, Avith the single exception of the United States of America. The proportion of railway mileage to population is a fair test of this advantage. I find that in the United States, in 1575, there was one mile of railway for every 591 persons ; in the United Kingdom, in 1875, there was one mile for every 1,916 persona ; in Germany, one for every 2,428 ; in France, one for every 2,940; in Europe, taken as a whole, one for every 3,461 persons. Now, at the end of next year, 1877, there will be in Victoria one mile for every 890 persons ; in other words, the facilities for railway travelling in Victoria, in comparison with the population, will next year bo twice as great aa they now are in Great Britain, and four times as great aa they now are in Europe generally." Sir George's rhetorical genius soared to the last day of 1877, in order to make a survey of the state of affairs from a greater altitude than could be attained on the 30th June last; and his generalisation is open to the observation that Colonial Governments do not always complete works contemplated, but not yet begun by the time appointed, so that the Victorian mileage may be less than he supposes at the end of Iffi, There is, too, of

course, a certain amount of absurdity iin comparing tlie railway mileage of a thickly-ycHi-.lal country like Great Britain, wlu:re railways are made purely from com* me-rehd motive.-?, with that of a sparaelyitihal:ted Colony, where, they are con-RllT.'jlo-I, not vvitii an rye to derive an immediate and direct profit from tbeir workincr, hut for the purpose of opening up the country and promoting settiem?nt. A Colonial Government makes a railway for the same reason as it makes a road ; aud if it bad but a like object in view to that -which is sought by the shareholders of a railway company, it would be no more justified iu entering into the undertaking than it would in starting a line of stige coaches in a district where tnc traffic was sufficient to evoke private enterprise in that direction. Sir George was not drawing a comparison between similars, although he, nevertheless, succeeded in tickling the ears of hia audience. Had he looked to New Zealand, he would have found a just comparison; but then it would have told against him, for, in addition to the GOO and odd miles of line open fur traffic on the SOfch June, 187G, this Colony had ?,S"2 miles under construction, most of which will be finished by the end oi 1877 ; and although we have no official figures to quote on the subject, we are satfe in asserting that Victoria does not contemplate so great an extension of hei railway system within the same period. A further examination of the report iu question gives equal ground for encouragement to New Zealand. Like ourselves, Victoria borrowed largely for railway purposes, and is paying interest on the loans at an average rate of 5.556 per cent. Speaking roundly, we are paying the same rate. The net deficiency in the Victorian railway accounts last year, which had to be supplied from the consolidated fund, was £122,990; but it is difficult to tell what is the exact percentage which the railways contribute towards payment of the interest upon the money spent in their construction, for although the Commissioner sets it down at 4.091 per cent., he only calculates the interest upon the debenture capital, without allowing for the considerable sum derived from other sources Avhich has been spent upon the lines. Victoria, for instance, has wisely set apart £200,000 a year from her land revenue for railway purposes, thereby paralleling, to a certain extent, a conspicuous feature of the railway policy of this Colony as originally propounded, namely, that a railway estate should be created by the reservation of blooks of land in each Province, so as to furnish a constant fund for the liquidation of deficiencies in the railway account. That feature of the policy was unfortunately abandoned at the outset, aud, while it i 3 useless crying over spilt milk, it is impossible to avoid feelirjg regret that so excellent a provision was not made against the resources of the Colony being unduly strained at a critical period. How nearly the railway ledgers will balance when the 1,030 miles of line authorised by the General Assembly are in working order cannot be more than guessed at. It would be unreasonable to expect some lines to pay for many years to come ; whereas the traffic on others is increasing so rapidly that, before long, they may yield an actual profit after every expense is defrayed. The mean between the two is the result which will govern our railway finance; but if the Victorian lines, which have cost £21,000 a mile, return such a handsome contribution towards the interest charge?, surely there is a rational ground of hope that the New Zealand railways, costing on an average but £6,000 a mile (possibly it may turn out to i»3 less), will prove at least as profitable. Victoria, it is true, possesses certain advantages in the shape of a larger population, a common terminus for all her lines, and less water competition ; but, giving the utmost weight to all these considerations, the difference between the capital exponded is so enormous as to fully counterbalance them.