Mr. Massey (Franklin).

I am much indebted to this gentleman for presenting my petition, and for calling attention to Mr. Arnot Reid's statements as to the working of the Stage System on the Siberian Railways. Mr. Massey very naturally falls into the general belief that the Government are gradually adopting my system, and I have no doubt they think so too. As a matter of fact, they are working in exactly the opposite direction; but I will deal with this in a separate paper. The reductions promised in the Budget are on the plan proposed by the late Mr. Charles Waring in what he called a distance scale (See his work, "State Purchase of Railways," Chapman and Hall, 1887). The effect will be to increase passenger revenue for a while, to give no real relief to the country, and ultimately to injure the railway revenue. I attribute much of the loss now being made on our railways to the grotesque attempts the Government has made to appropriate the ideas contained in the Stage System. Long ago I pointed out that they could not make the two things fit one into the other.

Mr. Massey is right. If the system is tried, it is tried for the whole Colony; therefore the whole Colony should take the risk, if there is any, which I deny. I quite agree that neither I nor any set of citizens should be allowed to make a profit out of the railways of the country.