The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatsoever state or persuasion, religious or political. THURSDAY, FEB. 27, 1890.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2750, 27 February 1890, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatsoever state or persuasion, religious or political. THURSD AY, FEB. 27, 1890.

It has been said on high authority that blessed are they who expect little, for they shall not be disappointed, and the Waikato Railway Heform League, and the settlers of the district may, take these, words of consolation to heart, in reference to the recent interview with the chief Commissioner of Railways at Hamilton, on Friday last. It can do no harm was the feeling, when the letter of the Kef or no League Executive remonstrating with the Commissioners on the present system of management in working the Waikato line was forwarded to them some two months ago, and it is questionab'.eindeedjudging from the tone of the meeting wifchMr McKerrow, whether it has done much good. Mr McKerrow was courtesy itself, but it seems to us. that tho settlers and their complaints against railway management are met too. much in the spirit of antagonism as a question of argument between the lay and the official mind in all mutters of detail, and are then smothered by such a final blow as that with which the Commissioner involved the whole question, when he said that the great difficulty arose from the fact that any great reduction would disturb the finances of the colony.

It may be quite true that while Waikato sends its 6000 fat bullocks yearly to the Auckland market at a cost of. carriage of six shillings per head, of which amount they complain, the West Coast graziers find it, pays them to send 5000 fat beasts to the same market at a cost of twenty-one shillings per head. It does not, however, follow that the diiference of fifteen shillings per head is so much to be added to the net profit of thd Waikato farmer over that of the West Coast man, and therefore that he has nothing to complain of. Freight is only one item of the cost. The Waikato farmers' bullock is a more costly production than that of the West Coast man, who has not to provide a turnip crop for his stores and fattenning bullocks. Then, when the Commissioner tells the farmer that if he finds the freight on wheat and potatoes eats too much into the price realised for these articles, he should concrete his produce in bacon, which can be more easily handled and cheaply carried, he directs their attention to a field of operations, which up to the present has had little attention devoted to it in this district, although in the South Island bacon curing is an industry assuming considerable and rapidly increasing dimensions. A step in this direction would, no doubt, in individual cases, be some relirf, but wheat must at any rate continue to be grown for export and largely too if the farmer is to live, at present prices, and though a penny or two pence saved on the freight of a bushel of wheat may seem a small matter in itself, it amounts to an appreciable sum when it is saved on thousands of bushels, and is one of perhaps half a dozen similar items on whieh similar savings in freight is effected. It is the aggregate of these savings that the farmer would feel, just as now in the other direction, he feels the pinch, not of this or that particular tax, but of taxation in the aggregate, Mr McKerrow undoubtedly largely overstated his case in saying that any large reduction (the League asked one half in the case of produce sent to the port, and even a greater reduction in the case of artificial manures sent from the port into Waikato) would seriously disturb the finances of the colony, because what was conceded to one Hue must be conceded to all lines. Why should this be so? It was not asked for whole distances. It was only looked for in the case of long distances, where at present little or no revenue accrues, and for districts sparsely populated, but capable of being opened up and largely cultivated, if only these very facilities for settlement, and the transit of agricultural produce to a market were afforded.

There is no gainsaying the fact that the cost of haula«e now employed in running the trains between Auckluicl and Waikato would not be increased, except to the extra hauling of the larger quantity of goods, if double the amount of tonnage were conveyed by them, Mr McLverrow indeed stated as much at Cambridge. A reduction of half the present rates of freight would, in such a case afford settlers the relief they ask without appreciably decreasing the present railway returns, and in fact by the impetus is would give to settlement, become a financial gain to the department. Would this disturb the finances of the colony 1 Perhaps so, but it would be in the opposite direction meant by the Commissioners. This, of course, is looking at the matter merely from the railway revenue standpoint.

If the production of Waikato were doubled, it would mean that the spending power of its residents, the farmer, the labourer, the storekeeper would be doubled also ; and thu3 as the all embracing arms of taxation so hug a man, that they squeeze 30 per cent of his earnings out; of him, it would follow that nearly a third of the value of this extra production would go into other pockets of the Government. Even if Peter lost something out of his pocket, which we maintain he would not, Paul would find thrice the amount in his, that Peter lost. What the country suffered in decreased railway revenue would be picked up by the customs. But this is just the view which the heads of the Railway department

before the appointment of the Commissioners failed or declined to take, and we "very much fear; judging from the late interviews, that the 'Chief Commissioner is so over-weighted in the way he is harnessed up that his views, how-ever-much they may be disposed in the direction we could wish, will have little potentiallity under the existing order of things. That the railways were made for the people, and hot as a mere reve-nue-raising machine to wring taxes from them, must never be lost sight of. It is the fundamental principle of railway reform in New Zealand. The railways were part only of the Great Public Works and Colonisa-tion-scheme. Colonisation was the essence of that scheme, railways and public works being merely a means to the end ; and in so much as the Government break faith with the public in employing the railways merely as a revenue-raising machine, it lessens their real value, not only to the public individually, which uses them, but to the very purpose for which it wrongfully applies them, ..-. ,?'■•' ■:"■ , :

Norindeed, if we admit the priiW ciple on which they are nd.w worked, a commercial principle, as the right one, is the railway department sincere and consistent in practice. If it were so, it would run trains only where a profit; could be made, or there was some possible immediate hope of making one, and every train would be knocked off that did notpay expenses. When, too, the Commissioners' speaks'of not being able to apply reductions to one set of lines or to long distance portions of a lins without applying it to the remainder, we are led to point to the differential rating in the corngrowing districts of Canterbury, as a precedent, and to ask how in the name of consistency, the department charges less for the carriage of goods to Te Aroha than to Hamilton ?

In conclusion, we urge upon the Waikato Railway Reform League the necessity for continued and energetic action in the master of railway reform. Agitation is the keynote of success in such matters.