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Expenditure.

The general results on this count are not so favourable, due mainly to the Department taking over, during the year, many miles of new track that have been unable, at the outset of their operations, to furnish a return equivalent to the general average of the lines previously operated. Expenses incidental throughout the Dominion to the change-over period from the old to the new workshops have also been heavy; highly competitive conditions have made the securing of traffic more costly, and improved train services have added to transport expenditure. These are factors that are not to be denied. We can but palliate their effects, and the results as above indicated show that our efforts in this direction have not, by any means, been in vain.