RAILWAY REFORM MR VAILE ON MR MAXWELL'S REPORT.-NO. VI.

Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2080, 5 November 1885, Page 3

RAILWAY REFORM MR VAILE ON MR MAXWELL'S REPORT. -NO. VI.

Sir,— Mi Maxwell in paiagiaph 20 of his report inakia the aswition tli.it [in.st cnnera cannot be piofiUbly earned at my long distmcc f.uus. Fir»t, let me remark that liming been always lined to woik at an even mileage rate, -he evidently thinks tint the thiough fare ia all that can be e.uncil. When faien jic thus lcckoncd as rpgirds the fiiianci.it icanlt, it matters nothing whether a neat in a carriage i% occupied by the same pnucngcr for tie through journey or l»y twenty different passenger*. The risult, how ever, work* very differently when hie* aie hy stages. Thus, on my sjstem alustclas* teat occupied by a throui;h i pi««-'jii>.'tr f i oin Auckland to 'IV Auamtitu uotil'l only enrn .'s■», it in possible for that suit by a suuces*ioii of passengers fiom station to station to cam llii This van k ewential feature of my plan, and to it 1 look for a large «hai<» of the profit. I confidently expect that the station to station business would ho largely incied.se that, on tue average, my thiough fares would be more than doubled. However, in order to give Mr Maxwell every possible advantage, I will argue the matter out on the through fare only, and so that he shall not accuse me of taking any advantage to myself, I will at once select the longest fare possible — namely, from Waikari, in Canterbury, to the Bluff, in Southland, a run of 436 miles. The present fares are . First-class, £4 10s lid ; second class, £3 10s J)d. I propose to reduce them to 18s Od and lza 8d; average* of the two fares, Ijo 7d. I maintian that passengcru can be very profitably carried at these fares, and beyond the mere assertion! of Mr Maxwell and the few men of inferior professional attainments who are with him, my position has never been disputed, and these men have never brought, nor can they bring, either fact* or figures in suprort of their aucrtiom. To prove that am right, I quote the following indUputible facts : In America they use only one claw of carriage, but that is far superior to our first-class. The everyday fare on the Erie railroad is one cent mile, which is equal to 18s 2d for the H:ili miles, or fourpence less than my ~ fn«tolaM through faies. On the Ea*t Indian Railway the fourth class fare is two and a half (2ld) pie per mile. Reckoning the rupee at, In Bd, this is equal to nine and sixpence (Ws fid) for the 43b' miles ; and Mr Maxwell tells me wo cannot do it at an average fare of \os 7d, Let him listen to this, and learn a leMon if he is capable ot doing to. In 1883 this railway carried 1 1,959,381 fares, and of that number 11,311,372 were carried at the rate quoted above, leaving only 648,809 fares for the three higher qUik*. 0o lorn©, » y«7 fo* t of tUc

Indian railways there Is no fourth class, but their third class faic for the return journey is geneiall} about one faitlnng per mile. In ISB3 the Indian railways canieda total of 63,008.933 fares, .ui'l of th.it number 60,113,313 weie touith chss passengeis, yot these railways paid all round a " net piofit of 3 91 per cent Do not cheap fares pay ? Mr Maxwell will, of course, tail; about cheap labour in India for comti uction and woi lung. Well, wo will now take him to the most expensive line in the woild, and from it I will undertake to diaw iiiy grandest illustration of how eheably people arc canicd. On the London Metropolitan Railway passcnpcis are daily earned 1G miles for two pence (2d), wlmh it c<|iial to 4s C>\(\ (four shillings and six-penc half-penny) for the 436 miles. In compaiing what is done on English lines with what might be done here it is iH'in-s.u V t» I «'«*p the following points steadily in \kw : — Ist The muchgreatci cost pei mile of the English lailways, and (2nd) the fact that the late of inteitst the Engli j h companies ha\e to pay will certainly he as high, and probably a great deal higher, than our late. Ihe di.uvbaeks on our side are defective consti uction and the slightly increased cost of wages. E\ery mile of the London Metropolitan Railway costs on an a vci age £633 000 as against our £7079. They, theiefore, lcqunc to earn over eighty - two times as much interest per mile as we require, and \it they daily earn passengers at only a little over one third of my lowest piopostd fare. I shall of couiho be mot with the usual tilk about tin; cnoimous population of London, but it will be seen that, as we requned only one eighty-second pait of the interest they i e«|«iii c, and the pi oposed fate h three times thens, we could do witli one fate for cveiy 2.">0 or 300 they require. I shall again be told that they can get them easily — how and fiom where ? The population of London is not more than nine times the population cf New Zealand nnd th.it of the United Kingdom not 70 times, thricfore they can only get their faies by giving gieatci facilities. If we cue similar facilities w e could get fares in the same propoi tion On the Ciledonian lailway (which pays from four to six pel cent, dividends), they carry goods of all classes at an average i.ate of one eighth of a pinny pei ton per mile, and the pioof that this late pays, u the fact that it is an intimal airangement with another compuiy la weight this is equal to canying a passenger 120 miles for one penny (I) This would give us about 3, 'd for the 436 miles, consequently Mr Maxwell azures m that we cannot do woik in N T cw Zealand for fifty times the rate it ia done ai in Scotland. One more proof, and this time from the rates for which Mr Maxwell is alone res pousible. The highest goods tato we have in our taiifF is that lor class A. I might, in all fairness, take the avciage of all classes catiud l>y weight, but being paiticularly anxious to give Mi Maxwell every possible advantage, I take class A alone. The fi tight for 20 tons of this class for the 43(5 miles would be £14G 6s Bd, and the weight of rolling stock required to haul it, say 13 tons. Twenty tons of passengers (300) at my aveiage fare for the 43(s miles (13s 7d) would yield £233 I'js, and the weight of lolling stock requited would be, say 63 tons In England it is usual to reckon id per ton per mile for the use of tolling stock, but suppose (to make sure) we allow four times that amount, and the chaise would be i"4J 12s for the 48 tons of extra lolling stock tequiied, which woul' 1 . still leave £43 17s in favour of the passengers Mr Maxwill will say, ' "It is all vciy well, but you cannot fill your cars." I leply, "Neither do you fill your trucks, and that it is eauiti to estimate closely for pisscngeis thin for goods, inasmuch as with passengeis you always have a return cargo." I think I have redeemed my piomibe, and shown that Mr Maxwell docs not know what he is talking about. I lia\ c pro\erl that in America, India, London anJ Scotland work is daily done at lates far less than I propose, and in doing so I have not claimed nearly all the advantage I am entitled to, for I have reckoned on the through faie only, and have asked nothing for the profit that must be made on the station to station woik, whi<.h I estimate will add fully 30 per cent, to the rates I ha\e quoted, and most likely double them. — I am &c, Saml'Mj Vailk. October '2o, 1885.

What .a nothing? — A footless stocking without a leg. An EuiTon\ K\ki.v T)u-. —Mr William Thomas Stead, editoi of the Pall Mall Ua/ette, uho^e name is in everybody's moutli, is the aon of the late Rev \V. Stead, a Baptist untiißtcr of Hovtden-on-Tync. Mr Stead was ehi( fly educated l>y his Lit her, but when he was twelve he ,was sent to Silcoares in the days of Or JJew glass. He thus writes about the effect of his e.uly training upon his editorial work :— " J're cininent among tho mean* by which my father mcd to ({iiukun our wits and fauiiliaine us with dialectics was the Sunday morning brpaUast. Each of us had to commit to iiiemoiy one veise of Sciiptnie. At breakfast the youngest began by repeating liis veise K\ery member of the family had to give his or her iut**i jirctatoin of the text. The elder ones conti i ved to raise almost nil the issues of lelig.ou and morality in these discussions at the breakfast table. Since tl^e days I have had acme little expeiienoe of discussions with all sorts and conditions of men. I have had to discuss face to face with the foremost men of our time the most presssing questions of our day. But never in my leceut experience have I ever had such consciousness of intense mental nctiwty. The expeiienco that came neatest to it —although it did not eijual it— was that of the In; ico halfnn-hour in which my lite editor (Mr Morley) and I used to discuss the nffan 3 of the univeisc before we settled down to woik." Mr II Coupcr will 'ell bv auction at Kilii!>ihi, on SiturcJ.v , h spccinl consignim nt of dr ipt rj