Some Railway Matters.

Increased Cost and Less to Show for it.

A table of increased railway mileage under the present Government is given on page 3. of this year's Public Works Statement, and, as usual, it is very misleading. Apparently an attempt is made to claim credit for a section of 17 miles from Woodville to Palmerston, opened on the 9th March, 1891, and for another section of 26 miles of the Otago Central, opened on the 9th April, 1891, both page 15 of which were constructed by previous Governments. The present Government came into power in 1891. Giving them the benefit of 41 miles which they claim is very near completion, although not yet open for traffic, the total of all their railway construction is 460 miles. The cost has been stated by the Minister for Public Works in the Public Works Statement on page 2, viz., £3,867,814, but there is also a sum of £211,572 liabilities, or a total cost of £4,079,386. The average cost of construction per mile has, therefore, been £8,870. Comparing this with the previous fourteen years (1877 to 1891), 892 miles were opened, and the cost of construction was £6,640,000. The average cost of construction per mile was therefore £7,440. (This is Government mileage only, and has nothing to do with private lines taken over).

The increased cost of construction under the Seddon Government has, therefore, been over £1,400 per mile. But are the workers getting the benefit of this? One can hardly think so, judging by the bitter complaints about the difficulty of earning a decent living wage at Taihape and other railway works.

Then compare the rate of progress for the two periods. For the fourteen years prior to the present Government, 892 miles of State-constructed line were opened, or at the rate of