RAILWAY FREIGHTS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10607, 4 June 1920, Page 5

RAILWAY FREIGHTS

NO CHANGE IN 25 YEARS FREIGHT SCHEDULE HOPELESSLY' OUT OF DATE. * (By the Editor, “Now Zealand Railway Review.”) It seems extraordinary that tho Railway Department should have made no substantial increase in its rates of freight during a quarter of a century, but this is a fact. When tho schedule of freights was consolidated in August, 1896, crossbred wool was worth 7,jd to Sd per pound, and halfbred 7d to 7jd. Butter could bo got in various qualities from 5d to lOd per pound, and tho farmer usually got od at the most. Cheese was even worse from the producer’s viewpoint, for tho most reliable publication dealing in those days with current prices puts cheese at 3)d to 4d per pound. Sheep, too, were dirt cheap. The-v were most valuable for their skins, which, if fullwoolled, were valued at 4s 6d to 5s (id. Hemp was sold at £9 to £9 10a per ton, of “good fair” quality. So tho farmer, struggling against low values and an uncertain market, was materially assisted by tho railways, which carried his produce at a rate which wpuld not add to his difficulties. Time wont on, and fortunately tho country steadily increased in prosperity, with tho development of tho refrigerating system and consequent opening up of a steady market in England for our fresh meat and butter. The old-time values were forgotten, until they appear now as a farmer’s nightmare, compared with tho current prices of to-day. Butter, instead of being retailed at sd, is not sold below Is ocl. Crossbred wool is no longer at Bd, but is sold under Imperial Government restriction at 17d, while halfbred runs from lod to 18jd —nearly throe ‘times the price when the railway freight on it was fixed, ns it seems, for many decades. Cheese, once at 3d, averages ll|d —hut tho old railway freight remains,though cheese is no longer a drug in the market.

In August, 1916, the railway freights and fares wore thoroughly revised, the control of the department having been taken back into Ministerial hands. Tho schedule of freights was- gazetted, and from it we make the following comparison with tho rates of 1914, and also with the additions, which were made by way of percentages, for the reason that although extra railway revenue was urgently needed, the department was unwilling to undertake the thorough revision so obviously required to meet increased costs of operating. Tho rates we quote are for a distance of 100 miles in each case:— t 1896. 1914. 1920.

This comparison shows plainly that the railways have been paying their way at the expense of other lines of merchandise than the Dominion’s primary products, and that those freights bear absolutely no relation to values. The freight has actually declined on tho products which have recovered so splendidly from the slump times when the low tariff was fixed. Our benevolent railways will carry for Is od wool worth £25 16s, charging 'a rat© of freight which the farmer could afford to pay when ho got only £l2 4s for’ Ids bale. There has been some glimmering of an understanding in the head office of the Railway Department that its freight schedule was a littlo out of date, and some years ago a revision was promised. In fairness to the secondary industries of the Dominion", apart altogether from the claims of the railwayraou that they should not bo penalised for losses incurred in carrying valuable goods at a below-cost.ruto, this revision is imperatively needed.

J3 s d S d .£ a d Meat. ton X 0 6 i 6 6 1 12 1 Hemp, ton .. 1 e 6 0 11 6 0 17 6 Sheep, truck.. m' 10 0 2 10 0 3 0 0 Cheese ton .. 1 17 7 0 11 6 0 ;7 a 6 Butter ton .. 1 13 7 0 H 6 0 17 Wool, bale .. 0 ,7 5 0 5 7 0 6 9