QUEESLAND TRANSCON TINENTAL RAILWAY.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue II, 9 November 1881, Page 2

QUEESLAND TRANSCON TINENTAL RAILWAY.

According to General Felding, the Trancontinental line will be about 2000 miles in extent, the cost of construction being about £8,000,000, exclusive ofloss of interest until the line could be nude reproductive, which end the syndicate propose to attain by settlement concurrent with construe" tion. General Feildiug goes on to say :—' The Colony up to December 31. 1879, had spent £5,044.263 in railways, being an average of £10 028 per mile It was not fair to include this the cost of the line over the Kange— probably about £40.000 and still a large margin between £10,000 and £4000. Supposing that mouey was raided at 4 percent, the average earnings of the railway showed only 2f to 3 per cent interest ou the capital expended. This would leave li per

c» i nt loss on every mi'e constructed, or £50 per annum, the pross total los* on the whole railway In* ing £100,000 pep year. It was not fair however to compare the Transcontinental rai:way with those hitherto constructed in Queensland which h: d been made slowly peucemeal, were long established, passed through thickly occupied districts and went on as often as the Government found it. pecespary to accede to the demand of pnpuialiou. If the comparison referred to is not, as he says, a fair one, it is at leas!, observes tbe Western Star, strongly in favour of the Transcontinental line, and that can only be substantiated by results to be based on a system of management as widely different from the oue existing as the construe! iom of the new will differ from that of the old.