The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 1913. FREIGHTS AND FARES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 256, 19 March 1913, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 1913. FREIGHTS AND FARES.

It is apparently not going to take the shipping companies long to pass on the extra cost incurred by the new engineers' agreement, for if a report telegraphed from Auckland is correct, the community in the course of a day or two is to see heavy increases in both passenger fares and freight rates. An Auckland reporter was informed by a representative of the Union Company that the increases in wages represent big annual sums, and that the company will be forced to pass this increment on to its clients. But an increase of a decimal of a penny in the £ on the company's turnover would also produce an enormous increase, probably more than sullieieiit to cover the increase in the engineers' wages. However, the company does not ileal in decimals of pennies, and we may he quite sure that even if it is pence when freight is concerned the proposed rise will he in terms of shillings in the case of passengers. It requires only a mild mathematician to see that if this prognostication prove correct, the company will make a substantial prolit and will reap where it has not sown. Even an engineers' strike, in point of fact, may be a blessing ill disguise where the proprietaries are concerned. And wlierl the larger companies lead the smaller ones are sure to follow. \Ye have seen the same thing in other industries. Flour goes up in price when wheat rises, but it has a nasty habit of forgetting to come down when the wheat market falls appreciably. The same thing applies to other lines of produce, and it is not even foreign to the dairying industry. The suggestion to pass on the additional amount is, in fact, typical of trust methods, for the average company, if it is hit for a farthing, always loves to beg a penny from somebody else to pay jt with. The Xew Zealand railways have suffered as much as other industries fiom the industrial disturbances of late years, but we have heard nothing from successive Governments of a wholesale raising of fares and freights, and the same applies to the various municipalities who are content to run their transit services at a price which will pay interest on the cost of construction and maintenance and supply a reasonable sinking fund and depreciation fund. "Private enterprise is naturally exercised with the accumulation of dividends, but there should he a limit to their exploitation of the consumer.