The Oamaru Mail. THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1880.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1267, 29 April 1880, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail. THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1880.

Like many other of our contemporaries, ;he JDonedin Star expresses admiration for the new regime Tinder which railway returns are published monthly in the Gazette, in a form which "presents more clearly the results of the traffic." But the reform over which our contemporaries are so much gratified is not only a mere sham—it is also misleading. By it the department professes to afford that for which members of Parliament and the people have for years clamoured a statement accurately showing the receipts and expenditure on the various sections and branches of our railway system, in order that it may be ascertained to which of them the Colony is indebted for the loss which has been, and is being, incurred as the result of the operations of the department. Mirabile dictu, in spit€ of the superior administrative capacity of the Government, we are as far as ever from the solution of the problem "Where are these weak points in oru railway system! Everybody knows that there are railways in the Colon] that connect novrhei-e and nowhere—that will continue to be a burthen 01 the Colony until, through the advanei of civilisation, even railways will b< superseded by some superior and lea expensive means of locomotion. Thesi are fitting monuments of a Government to whom they owe their existence, anc who owed the prolongation of their exist ence to them. But the compact and con tinuous railway system from Amberlej to the Bluff is also a financial failure "When this system was incomplete anc unlinked we were told, with mucl show of reason, that the losses that re suited from its working would b< turned into a profit when it was per fected. This consummation occurrec about three years ago, and yet we are apparently as far off realising the promised benefits as ever. Indeed, there has been a drifting in the opposite direction, notwithstanding the increase of settlement and cultivation. The Minister for Public "Works has at tempted to unravel the difficulty anc cope with it. He has instigated the new system to which we have referred iiTyl is proceeding with a reduction oi staff and salaries. Here is another in stance in which the people are beinc made to suffer through the blundering and lavishness of a Government fron which sprung our present administra tion, whose exterior is so very propei but whose heart is just like that of its political parent. How appropriatehow natural—that a scion of the ad ministration that scattered railways and loans broadcast over the land wifcl criminal prodigality, should feel the necessity for retrenchment —that thej should begin at the salaries of the underpaid officers of the railway department. This act is in delicious har= mony with the other acts of their hollow insincerity. They make a show oi being frugal by parading stupidly un> important measures of retrenchment. But their associations and associates arc too unfavorable. What an idea is that of attacking the pockets of the pooi working man in order to effect an appreciable saving in the expenditure of the department. Mr. Oliver knows full well that- the discrepancy between receipts and expenditure is so great that he cannot effect his object by. the means he is adopting i he should know that the salaries of the servants of the department are alreadj sufficiently low. Approximately thej are as follow:—Stationmasters, fron: L3OO for large stations to LI 30 foi small; engine-drivers, L 3 15s per week guards, L2 14s; porters, L2 6s; per manent-way laborers, L2 2s ; firemen L2 14s; cleaners, LI 13s; clerks, Ll3( a year. Any reduction of these rates would mean endangerment to life anc limb, and the inefficiency that attend:

false economy. Mr. Olliver, like his colleagues, is indulging in by : play, • whether for the sake of making politi- ; cal capital or not, we will leave our readers to judge. It is plain that the reduction in the expenses of the department that Mr. Olliver «vill be able to announce "will strike Parliament as being ridiculously disproportionate to the fuss that was made over the operation. "All cry and no wool" will exactly express the situation. The " new system" of keeping the accounts of the department will prove to be no less farcical and unsatisfactory. To attempt to discover what each minute section and each mile costs to work and maintain would be analogous to attempting to work out the physiological problem of how much it costs to nourish an arm, or leg, or even a hair of the human system. One dovetails into the other—each section gives and takes—much depends upon the intimacy of the co-operation. We really thought that, as Mr. Oliver had once spent a lot of money on the construction of a railway with which he parted at considerable profit, he would never display such ignorance as to suppose that the expenditure upon working such a system as that from Amberley to the Bluff can be minutely sectionised.; The accounts of some of the West Coast Railways that owe their construction to some of his colleagues, who now mourn over the sad condition of the Colony as though it had been produced by somebody else, are easily managed—we would that paying interest on the money expended in their construction were half so easy, The Starhasexpressed an opinion that the expense of nance should have beengiven separately. Ordinarily we would have done the same. But we know quite as much without this separation as it is possible to know under the system that is being attempted. Rule of thumb would give as accurate a computation. There is just as much philosophy in the niggerlike problem, "If two and two make four, what is the day of the month 1" The Star, on the authority of the returns, endeavors to show that the branch lines are losing concerns. It will be sufficient to take some of the branch lines in this locality mentioned by the Star to prove the fallacy of such an argument, based upon such flimsy premises. The proportion of expenditure to receipts on the Ngapara bpaneh is 158-36; Shag Point branch, 203*09. Our contemporary then states that the rtrnin line from Christchurch to Invercargill shows "a very fair average of receipts over expenditure." The results of the working of the branch lines, as given in the statement furnished by the department under the new system, certamly looks unfavorable at a first glance. But our contemporary seems not to have considered the fact that these and kindred branches are feeders of the main line, and produce the results which it considers to be so favorable. In the case of the Shag Point branch, for instance, a train leaves Oamaru each day at 11.50 for Palmerston, in charge of a driver, fireman, and guard. On ax-rival there it makes a trip to Shag Point. But one trip is made, for which half a day's expenses are charged to this branch. This may be perfectly fair. But, in computing the reproductive value of this two miles of line, it shoidd be credited with the mileage that it produces on the main lino. For instance, every truck of coal that is drawn over this 2-mile branch is drawn for several miles, and sometimes long distances, over the main line. It is precisely the same with the other branches. They swell the volume of the receipts from the main line as tributaries swell the volume of a river. "Were it not for these branches, the main line would be in a worse position than the branches are now. We need pursue this matter no further on this occasion. There are other fallacies in connection with the new and startling railway reform which we shall expose hereafter.