RAILWAY COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITALS.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1235, 18 February 1878, Page 3

RAILWAY COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITALS.

The “ Sydney Morning Herald,” referring to the above subject, and the jealousies which have hitherto retarded the construction of the railway between Melbourne and Sydney, has the following sensible remarks, which others besides the inhabitants of the two cities in question would do well to apply to themselves :

In our judgment, it would have been souud policy for the Government, as part of its railway system, to have concentrated its energies in the first instance on completing the line between the two capitals. We should have had remunerative investment as soon as the work was completed, and that line properly managed would never have been any burden on the finances of the country. But local jealousy has been too much for this policy, and we have had to construct our trunk lines simultaneously. For some time, and while we were struggling with the difficulties of crossing the mountain range, the unproductiveness of these short lines was an unnecessary burden on the revenue. We have now past that period, and the anmial loss is comparatively small ; and it is even clear that by a re-adjustment of fares and freights, we could at any time, if we choose, make the existing lines self-supporting. How far we can do that with additional branches and extensions into the less populous districts is another question. The disposition, however, to please all constituencies at the same time, is now no longer confined to the extension of the trunk lines, and we are entering upon a new stage of our railway policy when branch lines with different degrees of justification are pressing themselves on the attention of the Government. We are in fact sliding into a new railway policy under the force of political exigencies, without having fairly studied its probabilities. Ministers are forced to do what they must, and the pressure of local interests determines the general public policy. The railway communication between Sydney and Melbourne has also been delayed by the spirit of local jealousy between the two capitals. There has been in Sydney an unworthy fear that a through railway would take to Melbourne more tralllc than it would bring to Sydney. We cannot venture to predict how far this would be the case, but we unhesitatingly assert that it is an objection which ought not to be put forward by a State boasting of its free-trade policy. If Melbourne draws the trade of the interior, it must be either in virtue of certain geographical advantages, or of certain superior business energy on the part of the Government or on the part of private merchants ; and in that case the traffic goes where it ought to go. The country people have a right to the use of the best market, and it is only a form of protection to force them to trade with a less advantageous emporium simply in order that the favoured metropolis might get the profit of their trade. What Sydney can win in fair and open competition, let it win ; what it cannot win unless its rival is handicapped, let it lose. There is no other doctrine which is consistent with free trade principles; no other which onr Government ought covertly or openly to espouse.