RAILWAY RATES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2258, 27 December 1886, Page 2

RAILWAY RATES.

Apropos to the controversy regarding the advantages asserted by some aa likely to be secured by selling the New Zealand railways to private companies, we present for their consideration the following paragraph, published in the Financial Reformer for October :—": — " Our old friend Mr Thomas Brigga has been ■writing to the Echo on the subject of railway rates He has all along been an advocate of State purchase of railways, and a chapter in his book ' Poverty, Taxation, and the Remedy,' is devoted to this subject. There is no doubt that the charges nude by the railway companies militate against trade to an incalculable extent. Nor is this canfined to large transactions. This year, for instance, we have had an abundant yield of fruit, and had we cheap rates of carriage everyone could have participated in the boon of cheap trait. Hat the carriage in many cases amounts to far more than the co3t of the article itself. Not only this, but we must recollect that a vast quantity of fruit comes from abroad, and is cairied at a far cheaper rate than our native produce, a*id consequently oar newspapers abound in complaints similar to the following, extracted from The Times :—" I have just had a specimen of railway charges. A box of plums, worth about 2s, was sent hence to Bith. The railway charge thereon was os OJ. A similar lot from America, lam told, would cost Sd only. Can fruitgrowers in England compete against fetich unfair chaiges?" Thus it appears that the often-repeated assertion "that were railways of New Zealand managed as piivate coir parries manage their atfriirs, the public would bo great gainers,' is bised on imagination, not on fact. One thing, however, seems certain : our railway managers in New Zealand draw their inspiration from the railway management at Home, evidently being unable to distinguish betweeu State railways, constructed for public profit and advantage, and railways constructed for the private profit of companie-. It is high time the difference was recognised.