THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1912. AUSTRALIAN RAILWAYS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10713, 6 December 1912, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1912. AUSTRALIAN RAILWAYS.

In the current number of the Insurance and Banking Record there, appears an interesting analysis of the railway returns for Australia and New Zealand for the past year. In view of the obvious differences between the , two systems it is, as an Auckland paper points out, impossible to draw any detailed comparison between | them ; but there are one or two points in which it may be worth our while to contrast the- results obtained. One important feature of the Australian returns is tlio recent heavy rise in the ratio of working expenses to gross earnings. Three years ago the ratio for the Australian lines was 62 per cent; last year it was 66 per cent; and the Insurance Record be'lieves that the prospect of -further advances in wages and less.buoyant traffic points to still less satisfactory results in the. coming year. On the . New Zealand, lines for the same period the ratio of working expenses ! to gross earnings has risen from 66 per cent to 67 per cent; the rise here is less strongly marked than in j Australia, but it is rather disquieting to observe that our own ratio —67 per cent—fa distinctly 'higher than that recorded for the Commonwealth. On the other hand, the ratio of our net earnings to the mean capital expenditure is far from reassuring. New. Zealand's percentage rose from 3.6 in 1909-10 to 3.8 in 1910-11, and foil again to 3.7 in 1911-12. On the other hand, the Australian returns show that the Commonwealth lines have paid from 4.2 to 4.5 per cent on the mean capital expenditure during three years. It may be fairly assumed that a great deal of the construction work here has entailed heavier outlay than lino-laying in Australia. But after making due allowanco for this, tho fact remains that in these two important respects . —working expenses and interest re- , tunis —tho New Zealand lines eom-

pnre unfavourably with the Commonwealth railways. Possibly when tho projected reorganisation of our system is undertaken by tho now General Manager, we will learn more about (lie eamsos of these defects and j tho means that can be employed to jremedv t'leni on'eetivolv.