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THE HOBSON'S BAY RAILWAY COM-
PANY.
In another column our readers will find a
statement of the accounts of the Hobson's Bay
Railway Company, up till the end of October
last. The perusal of that document will, we.
apprehend, cause very much surprise and dis-
satisfaction on the part of the general public, no
less than on that of the shareholders, both on
account of the enormous expenditure it discloses,
and the very decided proof it appears on the face
of it to afford of gross mismanagement of the
company's concerns. Of course it is not our
business to deal either with the grievances of the
shareholders, or the shortcomings of the
directors; for, considered as a private company,
these matters lie beyond the province of the
public journalist. Let the gentlemen whose pro-
perty is involved look after the management of
their own concerns, and calculate their dividends
as best they may. But the public relations of
this company are quite within our province, and
demand from us a strict examination.
The Hobson's Bay Railway being the first in-
stalment of that vast railway system which we
all look forward to, as the grand
enterprise of the colony— the first
step towards the actual realisation of that gigantic
project about which our Financial Magician
talked so glibly in the Council on Wednesday
last — a more than ordinary degree of interest
attaches to its affairs, and the colonists are the
more anxious to know what are its real history
and prospects. If this first attempt of Victorian
railways should prove a failure, so much the
worse for all future similar projects. If the
shares in this first enterprise should fall consider
ably below par, what is the probability of Lon-
don capitalists being anxious to undertake that
little loan of nine millions sterling, of which the
wonder- working Secretary made such a trifle
the other day ? These are the points for the
colonists to consider, and it is on these we take
our stand in dealing with the balance sheet now
before us.
Truly, it is a surprising document. To look
at the total expenditure merely, one might im-
agine that it represents the cost of an under
taking three or four times as great as those two
poor miles of rails along that sandy strip to
the Beach, with the wooden bridge,
wooden termini, gate - house, and all.
We look at the little railway and then at the
balance-sheet, and we are struck with the fact
that amongst all the costly works executed in the
colony within the last three costly years— the
Holmes contract and the Mount Alexander road
not excepted — the Hobson's Bay Railway bears
the palm. But let us come to figures.
The length of the railway, on a dead level,
without cuttings, tuunellings, curves (except the
gratuitous one at this end), or gradients, is just
two miles. The land cost nothing ; there are
no costlier buildings than two or three wooden
cottages, and one cheap bridge; and not the
shadow of engineering difficulty. There is no
thing. in fact, worth mentioning in reference to
cost except two miles of iron rails and wooden
sleepers, and a pier at the sea end. And this
swallowed up exactly the sum of £154,633 14s 2d
or at the rate of something over £77,300 per
mile! We have before us tables of the cost of
railways in England, and find that the average
cost per mile since 1842 has been about £34,000,
or less than half the sum expended on our one
little railway. And to this we subjoin the
cost per; mile of a few of the most expensive
lines : —
Great Western ......................................... £50,239
London and North Western.........................53,541
Birkenhead, Lancashire, and Cheshire...... 60,027
Dublin and Kingstown ................................76,200
London and Blackwall ............................ 256,050
So that our railway has cost much more than
any line in Great Britain, except the Dublin and
Kingstown, and the Blackwall lines. Leaving
out these lines, which, as our readers are aware,
are special and extraordinary exceptions, we find
that the Great North Western, with all its stu-
pendous works — miracles of engineering skill,
and costing mints of money — and with all the
vast sums it expended on the purchase of the
land, cost £23,800 per mile less than those two
miles of level rails to Sandridge. The thing
seems really incredible !
But we pause here to-day, both in order that
the public may have time to digest these facts,
and that we may have space to enter more fully
into the subject to-morrow.
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