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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 24

Chapter IV. Railways a Loss Wrongly Charged

Chapter IV. Railways a Loss Wrongly Charged.

This is the account for 1877 :—
£ s. d.
Total payments in the Colony 220,722 15 7
Paid to Foreigners for Interest—Cost, £8,300,000, at 5 per cent 415,000 0 0
Yearly Renewal, 860 miles, £120 103,200 0 0
Total yearly cost, 30th June, 1877 £738,922 15 7
Total receipts 283,220 3 10
Deficit loss, one year £455,702 11 9

Who paid this heavy loss?—The workers.

Whatever the ultimate fate of the Railways may be, it is certain that for years past the Foreign firms, Loan Companies, and so forth have been very largely profiting by them, and have not only not paid any taxes towards them, but have positively seen, without a murmur, the whole burden of that loss laid upon the wages fund and the industry of the nation. In the chapter on Taxation, it was shown that the ignorance that compiled our Tariff and settled the interest on Railways was so great as to be hardly credible. Surely it is worse to do, as the Prime Minister does, to say we have a profit on the Railways; it is satisfactory to see the productive nature of the expense, when the real truth is that if the actual interest (paid on them since the first sod was turned) and compound interest were charged we should be amazed to see millions lost. Really, after all, the fiscal riddle lies just there. New Zealand is heavily taxed; we groan under it. Loans, while spending, relieve, to fall the more heavily afterwards; and when a Ministry can cover deficit with more loans, pay interest with loans, and then refuse to tax the property that gets the benefit, it must be they adopt the motto—après nous le dèluge.