INCREASED RAILWAY RATES & AN AUCKLAND PROTEST.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1442, 31 August 1915, Page 2

INCREASED RAILWAY RATES & AN AUCKLAND PROTEST.

The Auckland Herald raises a protest against the proposed increase in railway passenger rates. Our contemporary says : “What Auckland and the North Island may strongly protest against, however, is the addition of a penny In the shilling to railway passenger rates and 10 per cent, to railways freight charges. The reason offered for this is that the railway must be made to pay y/i per cent., which can only he done by increasing charges or reducing service and discharging hands. As a matter of fact the North Island railways pay much more than y/z per cent. ; they are already overcharged in order to make up the annual deficit of the South Island railways, and are to have this unjust overcharge heavily increased simply because the South Island has not enough business to employ its political lines and to maintain their unprofitable services. This is inequitable and unjust. Railways which are mere luxuries should have luxury rates, so that the railway system which Is developing the North Island need not be burdened by their existence. It is the struggling northern settler who has to pay for Otago Centrals and Otira tunnels, and unroaded northern district which has to remain undeveloped and unproductive because public money is squandered in the South on lines that never pay.”