South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1881.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2459, 4 February 1881, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1881.

The Minister of Public Weeks' is in the position of the man with the donkey. The donkey owner was reprimanded for riding the brute, a aid when be carried the donkey instead,, be. was reviled for bis stupidity. Mi - Oliver bas been endeavoring to please everybody and be bas pleased nobody. For altering a railway time- table be bas been biased at Invercargill, for refusing to give audience to a, deputation of railway employes at Dunedin be bas been told that be added sundry nails to bis coffin, and for i ncreasing the rates on grain bis Ministerial exisience bas bccen repeal;edly extinguished by the newspapers of the colony. The strangest phase of the Oliver assaults is that the IV [blister is merely an instrument in the hi mds of bis officers. He has no particular interest in doing an unkind thins: to Invercargill, neither can be profit individually by raising the rates for grain on the Canterbury lines. But for the sake of the fun it is necessary tba'o there should be a departmental aim t-sally, and Mr Oliver having take n the sins of railway mismanagement on bis shoulders has received more: kicks than ba’-pence. In the matter of railway tariff, it is to be feared that- .-a want of firmness bas been shown, fiw • which no proper excuse can be of ffered. In

October last with the view of augmenting the railway revenue the tariff was revised, and the rates for conveying wool and grain over long distances were slightly increased. The experiment has only had a four months’ trial, when pressure is brought to bear, meetings are organised, a quantity of discontented vaporing is disengaged from one or two County Councils, and the tariff is again reduced to something like its original shape. We need hardly say that while railway tariffs are regulated by popular impulse, and held in this wavering condition the railways of New Zealand ean never be expected to pay. Had the managers of our railways endeavored to cure some of the absurdities and anomalies of the tariff their action would have been entitled to every sympathy. But what have they done? Have they not simply played into the hands of a few large squatters on the plains, who perceive that the lower the railway tariff the higher will be the rents from their leaseholds?

The mileage rate is a most extraordinary one. It varies from 7d per mile per ton down to Id. There is no sliding scale. It expands, collapses and expands again after a most eccentric fashion. Beginning at 2d per mile it goes on increasing a penny at a time till at the fifteenth mile a sudden jump is made to 7d and then again at the next mile post the rate as suddenly declines to 2d. The rate oscillates unevenly from 2d to Id till seventy miles is reached, and then it acquires a steady unalterable condition, the minimum of Id being adhered to. Now, it will occur to everyone that such a tariff as this is confusing to the railway officers, confounding to the public, and altogether irrational. There is no such thing as method, principle, ratio, or progression connected with it. The disparity between one penny and sevenponce is far too great. Beginning with 2s per ton the rate varies from 2d to 3d, 4d, and 7d per mile up to the sixteenth mile. Then it travels like a pendulum along short stages at the rate of 2d and Id alternately till it acquires a steady motion and settles down at Id. A tariff of this kind is not only confusing and preposterous but it is unjust. Why should a farmer who is situated say fifteen or sixteen miles from a seaport, be required to pay an average rate of 4d per mile when beyond that distance the rate only averages a little over Id per mile. If the department can carry grain for 15s 4d fora distance of 100 miles why should 5s 4d. or more than one-third of that amount, be demanded for 1(1 miles ? Is the farmer who happens to reside a few miles away from a seaport or market to be bled freely by the department, while the distant grower has his grain and other produce carried for a nominal figure ? The Rakaia farmer, for instance, has to pay Os -8d per ton for the conveyance of his grain for a distance of 42 miles to Lyttelton, while the Rangitata farmer has his grain carried twice the distance for 13s 7d.

Such a tariff, we maintain, is unjust. It is unfair to the fanner and unfair to the general taxpayer. The only object it can achieve is to give a fictitious value to land remote from port or market at the cost of the consolidated revenue. It constitutes an injury to the farmer whose land is conveniently situated, because it drags in undue competition and compels him to pay the piper. To put the matter in a plain light, the farmers situated within a radius of twenty miles of Lyttelton, Timaru, and Oamaru, are having their pockets rifled for the benefit of the squatters on the plains who air their eloquence in the Ashburton County Council. The grain and wool tariff is manipulated in such a way as to favor the older ports at the expense of the younger ones, and to give disadvantageously situated properties a fictitious value at the cost of the general revenue. We maintain that the woolgrowers and leaseholders of the Ashburton Plains have no right to profit at the cost of our railway revenue, while the farmers of Timaru and Oamaru are made to pay through the nose for every ton of grain that they venture to ship direct from the nearest port. If the railway department could only be induced to assume an independent front towards the leaseholders between the Ashburton and Raugitata and tvould give over fighting with the elements between Timaru and Lyttelton on the north, and Oamaru and Dunedin on the south—if it would abandon its ruinous and useless competition with wind and waves —a large amount of money that is now lost or squandered recklessly would be saved, and our railways from being financially a failure might gradually be made payable.