South Canterbury Times. WEDNESDAY, JAN. 14, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2125, 14 January 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. WEDNESDAY, JAN. 14, 1880.

Our recent comments on the working of the New Zealand railways are fully justified by the traffic returns that have just been published. For some time past the expenditure of the department has increased, while the receipts have seriously fallen off. During the twenty weeks between June 30 and Nov. 15, 1879, the total receipts amounted to £259,176, and the expenditure was £226,196. For the corresponding period of 1878, the receipts amounted to £236,136, and the exwos £180,276. In the interval between the two periods fifty miles of new line had been thrown open to traffic so that a considerable increase in the returns might fairly have been anticipated. It is true there has been an increase of receipts, but it is overshodawed by the increase of expenditure. While the revenue has grown to the tune of 50 per cent., the cost of working the lines has advanced 100 per cent. The balance of income over working expenditure for the period named was £55,860 in 1878, and only £32,980 in 1879. To put it in a still stronger light, during twelve months the receipts have increased £23,040, while the expenditure has gone up £45,920. No ■wonder that some of our contemporaries regard this as a fact so startling as to demand investigation. These figures plainly show that the present railway system as it progresses instead of developing a profit is developing a substantial loss. To make one jump forward and two backwards is not the way to win a race. Yet this is the method by which the managers of our railways are endeavoring to make the lines reproductive. At present the rail-

ways are not very profitable concerns, seeing that they barely yield two per cent on the outlay’. If things, however, continue to go on as they’ are doing, this very fragmentary and inadequate return wiil speedily vanish. The outrageous disproportion between the growth of railway receipts and railway’ expenditure is something alarming. No temporary’ depression of trade can account for it. Whaever intelligible or reasonable excuse may be offered and accepted for the slow progress which the lines are making as regards productiveness, there can be none, we think for the exceedingly rapid rate at which the working expenditure is swelling. To fill in by the spigot and run out by the bung-hole is not the way to fill the cask. Yet this is practically the method by which the railway department is trying to improve its revenue. For every twenty shillings of additional receipts it is paying away’ forty shillings in additional expenses. This is not the way to make our railways pay. It may answer the purposes of highly paid officials appointed through political influence but it will impoverish the country. We arc told that radical alterations in the working of our railway’s are -contemplated, Hitherto these attempts at reform have been productive of a good deal of individual suffering without conferring any substantial advantage on the working of the lines. Retrenchment has been carried out at the expense of hardworking operatives, and the drones in our railway hive have been unmolested. The pruning in these Government departments to be productive of good must be done judi-

ciously, The overgrown diseased bnmelics must be lopped off or denuded of their superfluous foilage, but the small healthy twigs which arc essential to the growth of the tree should be encouraged and not harshly dealt with There are plenty of billets suffering from fatty degeneration for the head of the department to deal with, without applying the scissors to the working hands, whose presence and efficiency is essential to the safety, comfoit, and convenience of the public. A radical trimming of offices and a thorough revision of the railway tariff —particularly the passenger rates — must bojperformed, before we can hope to see our railway system on a satisfactory basis.