Bewildering rail fares

Most of us are familiar with that romantic train which, leaving Dunedin at an early hour in the morning and respecting which intending travellers are in big letters officially warned that the first stop is Mihiwaka, continues to stagger into Upper Port Chalmers about 45 minutes after starting, and this after a sojourn at pretty well every station on the line, and quite a period of repose at Sawyers Bay.

There are great mysteries in the conduct of our railway system. To some relating to the fares that are

charged, the West Harbour Railway League gives a desirable prominence. The anomalies in the rates for short distances near at hand are more than bewildering. Why should it cost more to travel from Ravensbourne to Sawyers Bay than it does to travel from Dunedin to Port Chalmers? Why should it be cheaper to travel from Dunedin to Waitati than from Port Chalmers to Waitati? Why should the first class fare from Ravensbourne to Waitati be 331⁄3 percent greater than that from Dunedin to Waitati?

These are the questions which the West Harbour Railway League very pertinently addresses to the Minister of Railways. If there is some ingenious system, dear the heart of the railway authorities, in the light of which such anomalies are officially explainable, it will at least be interesting to receive the assurance of its existence.

All the same, a system which is productive of such absurd results clearly needs all the departmental buttressing that can be given to it. It is difficult to imagine that the department really does derive from it any benefit worthy of the name. What is perfectly manifest is that the fares between wayside stations are quite unduly high, and that upon the score of what is equitable the travelling public is entitled to resent the imposition of them. The Government should be sufficiently convinced that it is not through the medium of high fares that railway revenue is to be increased.