OUR RAILWAYS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 186, 28 July 1908, Page 4

OUR RAILWAYS.

THEIR FINANCIAL POSITION. IMPORTANT SPEECH BY THE MINISTER. CHEAPEST SERVICE IX AUSTRALASIA.

Criticism of the financial position of the New Zealand railways, and demands for increased concessions, were features of many Financial Debate speeches, and last Fri'dav afternoon the Hon. Win. Hall Jones (Minister for Railways) gave his answer, making an interesting comparison between the services provided by the New Zealand system compared with those of the Australasian States, and dealing also with general matters connected with the department.

WRONG IMI'KKSSIOXS. Referring to the exaggerations made by some speakers during the debate, the lion. W. llal!-.loues said one member talked of a train which took two da .is to run fourteen miles on the Stratford blanch. The real fact was that it gave the poisons on the end of the line a chance - of spending four hours in Stratford and returning the same evening. (.Members: Oh.) Continuing, the Minister said that men who had gone on the. co-operative works without a shilling were able to take up land along the. line, and had established comfortable positions. Areas of laud were being got icadv for those men who would shortly be leaving the .Main Trunk railway. They had*" done good honest, work, and deserved recognition. (Hear, hear.) Dl SCONN ECTED RAILWAYS.

He regarded the railways as apart from party. We wore in a unique position in regard to railways. He knew of no other country in which the railways were so disconnected. There were eleven separate lines, and members could imagine the disadvantage of not being able to interchange rolling-slock, and separate, expenditures which had to be incurred, much of which could be avoided on a continuous system. How could the stage or zone system be carried out with these disconnected lines and small population'; In Denmark, quoted by Mr. Massey as an example of the successtul working of the zone system, the country was less than the size, of Auckland province, with a population of 2,000.000. The density of population and continuity of the system had to be borne in mind in making comparisons between this and other'countries. He asked members, in referring lo the revenue ot Ihe lines, not, to notice temporary lluctuations, but to lake the revenue as a whole. Some seventy miles of line on the. Main Trunk was being worked by the Public Works Department. THE EARNING POWER. \s for the fall in the rate of interest earned, some years ago the Government announced that it would look for a return of .'! per cent, on the. railways capital, and anything over that they would return to the railway users in order that the service might be utilised to encourage the country's development. Last Year "there was a greater mileage oi rails reiaid than ever before in the history of the department. They used 27.000 tons of rails, nearly 50.000 more sleepers than in any previous year, and 57 000 tons more ballast. Supposing thov charged this relaying to the additions to open lines account, the return of our railways would not have been 3.45 per cent.'but 3.70 per cent. Rut this extra work hail been done, taking advantage of the good times to put o-ir railway" into a good position out of revenue. Members who complained could not realise the position, or they would have congratulated the Minister. INCRKASIXfI EXPENSES. Tn addition to all I his the cost of labour and nearly everything used bad increased. Rails had increased since 1002 by 17 per cent., and coal had gone up about the same. Rut, notwithstanding this. Hie cost, of the railways to the public had gone down.