Railway Returns

Feilding Star, Issue 155, 31 July 1888, Page 2

Railway Returns

Following are the traffic returns for the Wanganui Section for the four weeks ending 23rd June, and the cor-M>a-r\rvn<-lin<r Tiflrind. 1 SR7 ;

Writing of the causes which have led to the continued falling off in railway receipts, our contemporary, the Evening Press, says: — "The whole trade of Wellington is dependent en the country. If the export trade stopped, considerably more than half the population would be thrown out of employment and every workhouse shut up ; the forges and ironworks might be closed at once. Let anyone calmly try to realise how entirely the basis of the trade of Wellington consists of the land, and timber industries of the province, as apart from the city of Wellinton. Apart from the Civil Service aud persons living on their own capital, they will find that tbe whole complicated social fabric of Wellington, with all its trade and labor, rests primarily on the land industries. Yet this Government has sacrificed, and is deliberately sacrificiiig these to establish a

few sickly industries in the towns. The colony cannot prosper under a system of this kind. Sir Harry Atiunson may for a time contrive to to wring taxes from the unfortunate people. So law-abiding are English people that they will submit even to taxes that strip them ; — but none ths» less every new tax is a fresh step in the desolation and impoverishment of the country ; and the day will come when town and country alike will have to face a state of things which will rouse the meekest to action and drive from office and power the authors of the financial ruin of the colony." This comes home to us in the Manawatu and Oroua Counties, who are depending so much on the timber trade for our living. Every day a sawmill is stopped means a loss of from £7 to £10 in wages. Yet if the Government lowered the railway charges even 25 per cent, on timber, that expenditure would go on for the next twenty years, and over fifty per cent, of these earnings would be spent in articles on which the Government would get a back freight, besides the customs duties on most of them. If a little common sense could be driven into the " powers that be," it would be a blessing to the country.

1888 1887 Passengers .. 1969 4 5 2696 4 0 Parcels .. 256 6 4 269 18 5 Goods .. 2260 1 9 2444 16 6 Miscellaneoue 133 10 5 320 411 £4619 2 11 £5731 3 10