Mr S. Vaile on Railway Reform.

Thames Star, Volume XVI, Issue 5042, 11 March 1885, Page 2

Mr S. Vaile on Railway Reform.

(Pee Pbess Association.)

.Napiee, Yesterday. Mr S. Vaile addressed a public meeting last night on " Bailvray Tariff Reform." Tho Mayor occupied the chair. By diagrams, Mr Vaile showed the number of miles of railway open in tho South and North Islands, and each separate.province, with tho cost of construction of each section, aod the earnings of each. The line at Westporfc was the only line in the South Island that had improved in position since its construction, and in 1884 it earned £3 Is 7d per cent, over working expenses. la the North Island, the Weilington railway < earned £1 8s 6d, Wanganui 10s Id, and Taranaki' 4s 6d per cent, over working expenses; the Napier line was the best paying lino in Now Zealand, and in 1882 it earned £3 13s 9d, in 1883 £3 4s 6d, and in 1884 £3 16s 9d over working expenses. The North Island railways contrasted favorably with those in tho South Island, although the latter paid . slightly higher rates of interest. The railways in the South had been going to the bad, earning less year by year, while those in the North Island main, tamed their position. The rates of interest on the whole of the railway system had fallen from ££ 8s 3d in 1881 to £2 lps 2d in 1884. Thus the loss has been increasing, arid in 1884 amounted to £377,186. Government appeared to Tieyr railways altogether wrongly. Their view waa that railways must be made to pay:; that is, that however they were managed, the first thing to secure was that railwaysdid not return less profit than tha interest on their cost of construction came to. His view was that railways, when owned by the State, should no more be necessarily expected to pay interest on the cost of construction than

macadamised roads. His strong point was this—the average of the present fare taken on railways, first and second class together, was Is 9f d ; under his proposed system of reductions/ the average fare would not fall below Is, and would ensure an enormous'amount more travelling. If they put two fares under the new system where now they got one, the result would be large yearly profits. He had often been on railways, and had a ten ton carriage all to himself, owing to the lack of passenger traffic. He recently rode 80 miles with two other people on bourd the train, and the three of them had two ten ton carriages between them, yet it was wondered that railways did not pay. The fact was the idea of making eucb. separate portion of a line pay must be abandoned, and railways must be regarded as a whole. In England it was calculated that 15 passengers weighed a ton. Now the first class fare from Waikari, to the Bluff would be about 18s 6d under his system, the distance being 436 miles, and the present fare £4 10s 6d. His proposed second class fare for the same distance was 12s 8d as against £3 Oj 9d, A ton of goods of the- highest class was carried that distance for £5 9s 3d, and a ton of passengers under his system of .reduced fares would come to £1114". sd; and he had not yet learnt that it cost more to haul a ton of goods than it did to haul a ton of passengers, and pjsser-gers could lo;d and unload themselves in addition. Ships goo Is were taken from Timaru to Lyttel on, ICO miles, for 15s 5d per ton, while under his sys!em a passenger would travel that ICO miles for 3s 6d, and 15 passengers, equal in weight to a ton of gorJs, would come to £2 12s 6d. The department was really driven into this position : it must either confess that it never carried a ton of gods et a profit, or that it could csrry passengers^ at his rate"te. ' " „. -