RAILWAYS: THEIR COST AND PROFIT

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 47, 21 April 1863, Page 3

RAILWAYS: THEIR COST AND PROFIT

The Westminster Review of October contains an article of great interest under this heading. We extract a few passages : —

"It should be clearly understood that colonial lines are usually worked at a loss for several years. Yet the colony is enriched by them, and the fact of a loss being certain is no argument against making the lines, If an English railway run through a district wherein there are no towns, little trade, and few inhabitants, tile shareholders need never hope to receive any dividends. But make a railway in a rising colony under the same conditions, and in a few years the untilled waste will laugh with harvest, the silent neighborhood become noisy with inhabitants; the line will first create a traffic, and then profit by it. Perhaps the most unsuccessful undertaking of the day is the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada. It has been made fifty years too soon for profit, but not a day too soon for the province. The Canadian Government ought either to have made the line in the first instance, or else, like the Government of Victoria have borrowed money in the London market to purchase the line _rom the company. The colony of Victoria has acted with great foresight and fairness. Nearly all the lines in that colony have been purchased by the Government. Some of them have been made at a large cost, on account of labor being scarce, the price of imported materials high, and the engineering difficulties very great. Two hundred and fifty miles of rail have been constructed, at an outlay of thirty-five thousand pounds per mile, including rolling stock and stations. In order to acquire and complete these lines, the colony has burdened itself -with a debt of eight millions eight hundred thousand pounds^ on which it has to pay five hundred and seven thousand pounds for interest. Though the sum be A. ilarge one, yet tlie same amount could not have been more judiciously, and, as experience will doubtless show, more profitably expended. The late Lord Dalhousie, with a sagacity which cannot be too highly applauded, left no efforts untried to introduce a comple'te system of railway communication throughout India. As art inducement to private companies to take the work in hand, the Indian Government guaranteed interest at the rate of five per cent, on the capital expended by them with its sanction. There cannot be any question about the liberality of that Government, although it may be disputed whether it has always acted with wisdom. We think it would have been better to have selected less costly models for these railways. In so choosing, the prometers of these railways have shown the usual fondness of Englishmen for the "grand style." As a people we are singularly averse to adopting temporary expedients, ho matter how well these expedients may answer. Had the American, in place of the English system of railway been, adopted for India, that country would have been covered with lines in a shorter time and at a much less expense than is now possible. American railways are generally admitted to be cheap, but are sne°red at as being badly constructed. Yet, they serve all the purpeses ef traffic, and, what is more, are remunerative investments, At one time they were detestable. The rails were flat pieces' of iron, spiked down on longitudinal timbers. In the course of time the spikes Avorked loose, and the rails became bent up at the goints of connection. These bent up rails were commonly termed "snakes' heads," and they well deserved their nickname, for it was a frequent occurrence for the end of a rail to perforate a passing carriage, and impale an unhappy passenger. But these r e things of the past, and Americans can boast of having constructed very seiviceable railways at an average cost, in round numbers, of eight thousand pounds per mile. S-.isible persons may retard, but cannot hinder the commmencement of any undertaking in which the human race has an interest and by which the whole world will be benefited. To complain that such persons exist is equivalent to complaining that in all ages and climes men occupy high positions and -wield large powers, who are fainteheartedj short-sighted, ignorant and obstinate. Wherever railways are constructed, whether they cross the American continent and link the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, or line the- banks

of the Thames, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates, traverse the burning plains of Hindostan or the snows of Siberia, the maxim enunciated by Mr Pease, of Darlington, when railways were only experiments; oh the success of which he had risked his fortune, will equally hold good and remain unquestionable evidence of his largeness of view and soundness of judgment — ' Let the country but make the railroads, and the railroads will make the country."