The Waikato Times. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1877.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 822, 22 September 1877, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1877.

Iqual and exact justice to all men, )f whatever sute or persuasion, roliiji ms o political * * * * * lere shall the Prcso the Pkoplr's rig! t mamtaii' Fnawetl by m uence and unbribed :«v . ••■ v

Dhe question of the cost of freight, vhich was raised at ihe meeting. of he Cam bridge Fa era era' Club on I'liesdny, is oue of very great inijortance to an agricultural comnunity. The two lions m the path )f the agriculturalist m New Zeaanrl are the cost of labour and the jost and difficulty of carriage for his I wodace when grown. Lnbor-saviiv i

aiHchinery hus done much to enable the fanner to overo me the one difficulty, but the other still sweeps away a heavy percentage from his I'tSturns, a far heavier one, indeed than it should do. In the case of the Waikato, it has come to be •Inmost prohibitory, and yet;,w e have, dbw, both railway, and water comrhunication with Auckland. The -case we admit is an exceptional one m that neither is continuous The railway has, as yet, not; tapned the producing districts of Waikato. The cart, the boat and the car must all be pressed into the work. This* occasions much handling of the goods, and doubtless m this is found some cause for high freights. Necessarily this must continue m the case of traffic which is carried on jointly by a river company and the railway, aud it will be long before railway communication direct will be available for either the Cambridge, or eve*n the Te Avvamutu district. A carrying trade, however, is like every other commercial ooncern, to be extended by a wise and liberal management. If the rates are prohibitory, people will use it as little as possible— they cannot, indeed, afford to use it, but on the other hand a wise redaction may so far extend its use as to create an exceedingly profitable business. Jusfc as the reduction m the price of ordinary postage from five,ieuce to a penny turned the revenue receipts from thonsands into hundreds of thousands, an>l conferred an iuestimable benefit on the British public, so, doubtless, would a reduction m the cost of freight of agricultural produce lead to the carriage of fifty tons where now only one is senc, to the joint profit of the carrying company and of the producing and consuming public. Some time since, we published statistics showing the impetus which the facilities afforded by railway carriage ha>l given to grain growing m Canterbury. The railway lines and warehouses at that time were actually blocked with the vast quantities of grain sent to the market, where heretofore there had' been no outlet. Here is an exemplification of the principle we urge, that, show a producei how he may produce at a profit, and he will not be slow to take heed of it. Indeed, it has become a question whether still further increased facilities of railway carriage m Canterbury are not urgently necessary, and will not be to the great profit both of the producing settler and of the carrying government.

It will be sometime betore the largely prodnoing settlements of W«ikato, Cambridge Pukerimu and the npper country about Te Awamutu, will have direct railway communication with Auckland. The extension will probably be completed to Hamilton m four months time, and m seven months to Ohaupo, at least these are the contract limits, but it is not till the Kaipara and Puniu railway shall have been extended to the frontier, with a branch to Cambridge, that the settlers will derive the full benefit of railway transit for their produce. Meantime there is a large margin for reform. The Waikato Steam Navigation Company are wil.ing enough, we believe, to treat the matter m a business like way, but not so the railway authorities, whose charges raise the cost to its present prohibitory standard of rates. In his statement to the House, the Minister for Public Works said, that it was intended to offer the working of the Auckland railway to private enterprise: In this lies our hope of redress. A business man or firm with the line m their hands, would push trade to the benefit of the pulic aud themselves. The Government will not do this. Every concession made to common sense and businsss tact is wrung from them only by popular clamour with a wrench that shakes the very heartstrings of the official system. But they learn nothing from experience. The department, spider-like, re-spins its web of red tn pe, and returns to its normal habits till the besom of , public opinion sweeps ifc away again, to be a^-ain re-forme I. The Government departments have as much idea of working a public institution ou sound commercial priniples, as the Turks have of adopting and administering constitutional Government. As the latter looks for practical amendment to the enlistment of European assistance so must the former, if they mean their railways to pay, place their administrations m the hands of men of business. Auckland has been singled out as the vile corpus, on which to try fcnis experiment, and we heartly " rejoice that it is so. JNo change can be for the worse, nay we believe that were the working of the railway farmed by business men, freights would be reduced, and so arranged, that m iess than two years, the line, instead of being carried on at a financial loss, as till now, would be made to pay a handsome profit, while the effect of the impetus given to agricultural production would be largely felt both m Waikato and Auckland.