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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 77

Not Quite 33 Miles Per Year

Not Quite 33 Miles Per Year.

As the Government have managed to reach this total by the simultaneous construction of 20 different lines of railway all over the Colony, it means that the average yearly progress for each line for their term of office has been about one mile and a-half. They have, of course, in a number of instances, constructed three, four, and even five miles of line in a year. There have been spurts and spells; but one and a-half miles is the average.

This is a very serious matter for the Colony, because a number of these lines will not pay properly until they are completed. So the State loses the revenue, and in the meantime has to make up from other sources the interest on the money borrowed to build the lines. And this muddling system cannot be said to be due to want of money. For since the Government abandoned Mr. Ballance's policy they have borrowed more money than the Governments for the previous fourteen years did, and, moreover, they claim to have transferred an additional £4,355,000 of "surpluses" to the Public Works Fund.

Hon. Mr. Rolleston on the lease-in-perpetuity:—"The lease-in-perpetuity, which took the place of the perpetual lease, was the most rotten system which was ever provided for in the Statute book of the Colony, and they would give their ears if they could get out of it with decency."