MOTOR TRAFFIC AND RAILWAYS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2339, 8 October 1921, Page 2

MOTOR TRAFFIC AND RAILWAYS.

THE daily mol or 'lms service be- | ween Foxlon and Palmerston, started as an experiment, is being so well patronised lliat it is )io,ssilde that an extra ’bus will have to be put on to meet tbe demands made upon the service. The service is more convenient than the railway, recently curtailed, and less monotonous. It has been suggested, however, that the time ol' departure from Foxlon should be an hour earlier. There is a doubt in the minds 01. some people as to the wisdom of supporting motor transit as against the railways, unless there is a certainty of continuity of the former. That, however, is a point which the Railway Department will have to consider where petrol-driven vehicles enter into competition with the railways.

REFERRING to the growing increase in competition against the railways on the part of motor traffic, Mr Vincent Pantin writing in a contemporary, explains how this is possible: —“It is not. as some people might suppose, because petrol is cheaper than steam, but because the railroad is worked on the toll-gate system, whereas the high roAd is maintained from the rates. In New South Wales, where we have a movement for putting the railroad on the same footing as the high road, the figures show that out of every shilling received for freight, Sd is expended in service in the form of wages, fuel and upkeep, and 4d is allotted to the payment of interest to the mortgagees of the railway, or in other words, the owners

of the national debt invested in railways. The roads in Sydney and in most of the districts where the rating exempts improvements and falls upon the unimproved land value are therefore free to motor traffic, and one shilling invested in motor traffic provides, one shilling’s worth of service without deduction towards the interest bill on the original cost of the road. A million pounds invested in either railroads or high roads has the same effect, namely to increase the value of the land it opens up (also especially land in the capitals) by at least (he interest of the loan annually, and consequently justice demands that the users pay their share in wages, fuel and upkeep and the owners of the land which is thus benefited pay respectively their share. This is not mere theorciical moonshine, but an actual necessity unless we wish to see our little country, so blessed by nature, retarded by crass stupidity. That the high price of travelling is restricting all but necessary trips is probably true under Bolshevism, but it certainly ought not to be the ease in a sanely governed community.”