Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1938. A CENTENNIAL MEMORIAL.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 December 1938, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1938. A CENTENNIAL MEMORIAL.

TTAS the last word been said on the subject of a Centennial in the Wairarapa and must it be taken for granted that the people of the district are content to pass without notice the-completion of the Dominion’s first hundred years or existence« The foundations of white community life m this district were laid by hardy and gallant pioneers—men and women of vision, who looked far ahead to a future they could not hope to see. Have the people of today fallen away from the standards of their forebears, and is there for them no inspiration and stimulus in the thought of setting up some appropriate memorial which would be at once a salute to those who have gone before and a prayerful aspiration for the future? It is certainly not in accordance with our traditions as a people that in this district, any more than as a national community, we should allow the centennial to pass unregarded and unmarked.

The committee of local body representatives which met not long- ago to consider a centennial memorial was discouraged by difficulties and a lack of suggestions, but it surely does not follow that the whole district community is equally at a loss. Some proof to the contrary appeared in a letter from a Greytown. correspondent published in this paper yesterday, m which several suggestions were advanced. One of these was that a monolith, cairn, or column of rugged and dignified construction should be erected on some commanding height, of which several were instanced by our correspondent. Another was that a centennial highway should be constructed along the coast of Palliser Bay, linking existing roads and providing an alternative route to that over the Rimutakas. These suggestions at least are worth considering. They may, perhaps, be improved, upon. It is .entirely unworthy of the pioneering past of the Wairarapa, and of the future to which it may aspire, that its people should be content, as a district community, to ignore the centennial, or to treat it with indifferent neglect. BALANCING RAILWAY LOSSES. T ITTLB as it will be welcomed, the all-round increase of ten per cent in railway freights and fares announced yesterday, to take effect on December 11, is in keeping with the current trend. Costs are rising and prices must follow. suit. It will be appreciated, however, that an increase in railway charges and in those of .road transport means an increase in costs throughout a very wide range of industrial, and trading opei*ations.- The railways, along with other undertakings, will be affected by these 'increased costs and so, until a remedy is devised and applied, the game of follow my leader will continue. So far as the railway accounts are concerned, the need of finding additional revenue has been apparent for a. long time past. For years past, the total railway system and its subsidiary services have been operated at a loss, and of late this loss has been expanding. In 1933-34, a net revenue of £1,085,000 was earned, when £2,282,000 was needed to meet interest charges. The railways in that year cost the taxpayers about £1,200,000. In 1937-38,' net revenue amounted to only £632,000, when £2 335 000’was needed to meet interest charges, so that the amount to be found from taxation to meet interest charges rose to approximately £1,700,000.

For the 24 weeks to October 15 last, the railways had a working loss of £BO,OOO, as compared with a net revenue return of £152/100 for the corresponding period last year and a contribution to net revenue of nearly £347,000 in the same period of the preceding year.

The estimate of gross -railway revenue for the current financial year, it may be noted, was £9,211,605 and the estimate of working expenditure £8,706,207. This was equivalent to budo'eting for a deficit (taking interest charges into account) of upwards of £1,800,000. So far as the current year is concerned, the increases now decided upon perhaps are regarded as necessary to ensure that this estimate of loss shall not be greatly exceeded.

It is evident that comparatively little can now be done to rehabilitate the finances of the current year. The. increased rates will operate for only a little over a quarter of the year. On the basis of the current year’s estimate of gross revenue, the increased rates (ignoring any possible loss of traffic) might bring in an additional £900,000 of revenue. A quarter of that sum'obviously would go only a little way towards closing the widening gap between expenditure and returns in the railway accounts. ° Looking to the next full year of operation, it is apparent that nothing more is being attempted meantime than to reduce the amount of the annual railway deficit. At the most modest estimate, more than twice the amount of additional revenue now being sought would be needed to establish the railways on a self-supporting basis.