ROAD TO TAUPO

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 684, 8 June 1929, Page 28

ROAD TO TAUPO

RAILWAY WOULD NEVER PAY PRIME MINISTER FIRM J (From. Our Own Correspondent) j ROTORUA, Today. “It is only after mature consid- | eration that the Government has | decided to stop the RotoruaTaupo railway—and to stop it for ever. j Thus Sir Joseph Ward in defending j the Government’s action at a public j address at Rotorua last evening. | It was a line that should never have | been started, said Sir Joseph. Rotorua was the centre of a great tourist traffic and what would people think of an Administration that, promised money to put a railway past Rotorua into another place in the vicinity. He did not reflect on anyone who "owned land in the territory the railway was to serve, but there was no reason why the Government should shirk its res-

ponsibility. The increased competition of the motor also made the line inadvisable and the railway would have run about one train a week or one train a fortnight, in the speaker’s opinion. The Royal Commission of 1922 considered that, under present or probable conditions, there was no likelihood of such railway earning enough to pay interest and working expenses. The commission estimated that of the area of land which would be served by the proposed railway, the quantity suitable for settlement was very limited. The late Mr. Massey, when replying to a deputation which waited upon him in 1923 urging the building of the Rotorua-Taupo railway, made reference to the growth of motor haulage, and pointed out that a matter for very serious consideration was whether it would not be better to provide a good motor road than to build a railway. “There is every reason for forming a conclusion that the position will be amply met by further road improvement an!d it is therefore proposed to construct a bitumen highway from Rotorua to Taupo,” said Sir Joseph. “The estimated cost of constructing , the railway, taken from the commission’s report in 1922, would be £700,000, exclusive of additional rolling stock, which would cost a further £50,000. With present-day costs, the estimate has since been increased to approximately £Boo,ooo,’’ he continued. “The expenditure on the construction of the line to March 31, 1929, amounted to £35,800. The length of the proposed line is about 54J miles. The commission estimated the annual revenue at £61,492 and the working expenses at £52,547, leaving a balance of about £9,000 toward interest charges, which it estimated at £30,000, assuming an interest rate of 4 per cent, on total capital cost of £750,000. It will be noted that the capital cost has been increased and the rate of interest is also higher, so that the interest charges would be £40,000, making the deficit still larger.”