STATE RAILWAYS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 52, 20 January 1872, Page 12

STATE RAILWAYS.

It is possible that not only colonising operations, but also most other great undertakings can be most efficiently prosecuted by private companies, or by private enterprise, than by Governments. But this is not the case with those undertakings whrch competition cannot regulate, and in which monopoly, as a consequence, is inevitable. This truth is forcibly illustrated and enforced in an able article on “ Industrial Monopolies” in the last number of the “ Quarterly Review.” The writer points out that there is always danger that a new principle, when it has once found aceept,.anoe, will be invested with a degree of .absoluteness and universality which no Tprinciple of human action can dissever; iarid that it will be applied without ■reference to the circumstances under •which alone it is true, or to the modi•fications to which, under all circumstances, it is subject. These remarks appear to be applicable to not only new principles but to all those principles which are embraced by the terms “ political economy.” The writer, however, only intends them to apply to what he looks upon as the leading principles of that science, viz.: the doctrine “ That individual interest, af let alone, will do more to produce wealth than any' organised action of Government.” He observes that the great masters of the science have always recognised more or less distinctly the limits of this principle ; but in practice, and in common opinion, it has often been carried too far. Upon this point we think there can he no doubt. That rule of conduct which may be quite right and proper under •one set of conditions and circumstances may be quite wrong under another. 'There are but few rules and principles universal application and which exceptional circumstances ought not to modify, or if found desirable to ignore altogether. There is no doubt a tendency on the part of the public, moio ■particularly in New Zealaud, to call foi ■Government interference on all sorts of pretences and in all sorts of cases, in an any of which it candonothingbutharm. There is also a tendancy on the part of Government to interference in matters with which it ought not to meddle, and at the same time to neglect its most obvious duties. We have too much legislation and too little Government. We are skilful in devising policies, which look well upon papei, hut which we have not the administrative ability and machinery to properly carry into effect. This was the case with Mr Domett’s Military Settlement Scheme, with Mr Reader Wood’s confiscation policy, and it remains to be seen whether it will not be the case also with Mr Vogel’s railway undertakings. Our author points out that there are a large and increasing class of industiial undertakings, which are of the utmost value to the public, and which return ample profit to the capital and industry bestowed on thorn, but which aie not, and cannot be, regulated by competition. Amongst these are harbors, canals, docks,”lighthouses, roads, bridges, and ferries, railways, gas works, waterworks, post offices, and telegraphs. In some of these, as, for example, docks and railways, competition has been attempted, but in none of them has competition been successful, 01, in the long run, possible. Not that its absence is in all cases injurious, as the public may lose more by division of authority and responsibility than they gain by competition. The development of railway communication by private enterprise, both in Great Britain and the United States, has been such that no goverment management, however good, could possibly have produced. The capital invested in railways in the former country amounts to the enormous sum of £520,000,000. Yet competition has wholly failed. It lias been tried, but under no conditions, says our authority, could it have been successful or permanent. The waste of money has been °reat, and the result is, and must ■be, monopoly. Each great company fio’hts .off, buys up, or amalgamates with original rivals, and thus competition is avoided. Of 353 original companies the lines they constructed are being worked by 28 only. The conclusion at which our author arrives ■js, that all such industrial monopolies as those above named Should belong to the Government,

national, municipal or local. The influence exercised by gigantic private corporations is a great evil in itself, and, should they ever turn their powerful organization to a political puipose, it would prove, as it has already done in the United States, a public calamity. For these and numerous other reasons our author recommends the Imperial Government to purchase all the railways in the United Kingdom, giving the companies the present market value of their property, with a per centage for compulsory purchase. If, then, iailways belonging to private companies neither insure competition, nor prevent monopoly; if in Belgium they are found to be, like the post office in England, a source of revenue to the State; if it is desirable that all railways in Great Britain should, like the telegaphie wires, belong to the Government ; and if it is unwise to foster laige private corporations within the State, as it has been found in Ameiica would it not be sound policy to prevent all the main arteries of communication in New Zealand from being monopolised by, or becoming the property of, any private monied corporation, or of any foreign capitalists whatever? The arguments in favor of railways being S rate property, are equally applicable to docks, wharves, gas and water works being the property of the municipality where they are established.