CANTERBURY RAILWAYS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4373, 26 March 1875, Page 3

CANTERBURY RAILWAYS.

(From the Press, March 11.) During the first five months of the period of nine months ending the 31st March, which was estimated to produce £23,000 of profit, not only had not one farthing of profit been made, but an actual loss had beeiv incurred on tho Canterbury railways. This represented the position of matters up to the end of November. Four months then remained, in which to make a clear" profit of £23,000, together with the amount lost in the first five months, before the estimate could be realised. Let us proceed from that point. In December an alleged profit of £3056 appeared in the official returns—this is the pretended profit on which we have made the foregoing comments. That the December profit was imaginary. is now placed beyond doubt by the January returns. In the month of December the total gross earnings are stated at a little over £IO,OOO against an expenditure of £OOOO. But no sooner bad January been entered upon than a large amount of expenditure belonging to December could no longer be held back, and had to be placed to the J anuary expenditure, in addition to the. outgoings properly belonging to that month. - In short, January has been robbed to pay December. The gross earnings for December were £10,240, and those for February £11,614: making a total of £21,854. The expenditure for the two months was £20,700, inoludmg the amount improperly charged to January, and belonging to December. We now bring our readers up to the end of February, aud the account will stand thus :

So that, in the first eight months of the nine in which £23,000 of profit was to be made a dead loss of nearly £4OOO is the actual result. But this is not all. The railway appropriations for. the period ending March 31st were exhausted before March began. Those appropriations amounted to £79,292 ; but included £3900 for renewal fund, and the Auditor is bound by law to keep back that sum. The net sum available was therefore £75,392. But as will be seen from the above table, the expenditure during the eight months ending February 28th was £75,265 ; or within £l3O of the entire amount. We know for a fact that railway accounts have been refused payment because the Auditor would not issue his warrant on account of the exhaustion of the vote. The whole expenditure, therefore, for .March, is in excess of the estimates. The truth is now placed beyond question ; and that truth is what we have stated over and , over again—that during Mr. Maude’s administration he has brought our railways down from a net revenue of nearly £30,000 a year to a revenue that cannot, under the present management, be more than nominal. Less than a year ago the Canterbury railways were valued at £700,000. It is a well-known fact that the Colonial Government would, if the Bill authorising the purchase had passed the Legislature, have given £700,000 for them. If the extinction of the whole provincial debt and a cheque for the balance had been acceptable to the Canterbury members, the purchase at that price would doubtless have been effected ; and for the Colonial Government to have bought the railways on those terms would have been far from an unwise proceeding, in their then state of productiveness, and with their capacity for future increase in the production of revenue. Yet in a few months Mr. Maude has contrived to make away with the value of this public property. Simply by bungling and ignorance of business, he has made that which was worth £700,000 as an. in vestment a year ago, not worth sevenpence as an investment now. Under his management the more work is done the worse the results are. So long as he holds the charge of this department, so long will the railways be the means of impoverishuig the province. No practical measures seem to have been taken to amend this frightful condition of affairs. It is said that some officers in the accountant’s department have been, or are to be, removed; but dismissals from the accountant’s office are no remedy for the mischief. The one cure that Mr. Maude might have found would have been to dismiss himself. Some time since we urged that the case was so serious iis to justify the special summoning of the Provincial Council. Had that course been taken, the discreditable expedient of keeping the railways going for the month of March out of unauthorised expenditure, might have been escaped. However, we can easily understand Mr. Maude’s reluctance to meet the Council. He may well shrink from the reception that awaits him. He dared to state, in his memorandum of November 20th, that his estimate of revenue from railways up to March would be “largely exceeded.” He will be forced to confess, not only that there has been no , revenue at all, but that for the whole nine months the railways have been, worked at a loss, and that he must ask the Council to vote a considerable sum out of next year’s revenue to meet outstanding liabilities. If after this he is retained in office, it can be but on one ground. The people of Canterbury must be magnanimously disposed to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of their neighbors. We can conceive no possible reason for leaving Mr. Maude whore he is, except that he may serve to all New Zealand as “ a frightful example” of official muddle, and as a standing warning of the disastrous consequences that follow when public affairs arc trusted in the hands of incapable and bungling administrators.

Receipt.}. Working Expenses. £ £ Quarter ending September SOth, 1S74 24,001 ,, ,, December 31st.. 25,G20 22.503 January and February, 1S75 21,854 20,710 Total .. ;, 71,565 ' 75,265