SUBSTANTIAL RISE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20101, 22 November 1939, Page 6

SUBSTANTIAL RISE

RAILWAY REVENUE BEST FOR A DECADE NET RETURNS ESTIMATE (Per Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. A further improvement in revenue was announced by the Minister of Railways, the Hon. D. G. Sullivan, to-day, tile gross earnings to November 11, 1939, being approximately £5,750,000, an increase of £540.000 over the amount earned for the first 32 weeks of the previous financial yea r. Tlie net revenue was approximately £229.000, an improvement of about £322,000 compared with the revenueposition up to the corresponding datelast year. •'The improvement is all the more remarkable when it is remembered that it has been secured in the more difficult months of the railway year,’ said the Minister. The greater proportion of tiie net revenue of the railways is obtained from December to March when the bulk of the primary products are handled and when the passenger traffic is much heavier. "The net earnings for the current year arc expected lo be not less than £1,250,000, an amount much in excess of the net earnings in any year during the past decade. The latest figures fully confirm that estimate." The Minister added that much had been made by some newspapers concerning the increase of 10 per cent in December 1938. One newspaper said that the whole of the improvement in the new railway revenue position was due to this cause alone. This statement was not, in accordance with fact. On the contrary, the increase in traffic had been such that an improvement in revenue was shown in excess of anything secured through the rate of increase. Another point that the newspapers had failed to acknowledge was the oilset to the increase resulting from the introduction of the simplified railways tariff in July last when higher merchandise rates were reduced to a standard considerably lower than that previously existing. This had resulted in a reduction in the revenue on this account.