worth much to a country unless they are built, owned, and managed by the State. In spite of many disadvantages, attributable largely to the roughness of the country through which some of them have to run, the State-owned New Zealand railways have realised profits nearly sufficient to cover the total interest payable on the money borrowed to construct the lines. There is now a net revenue of about £720,000 a year, equal to a return of over 3 per cent. on the capital invested. The passenger traffic has an extraordinary elasticity, increasing by several hundreds of thousands a year.
When the railways were given into Mr. Seddon’s charge in 1891, the Midland Railway Company was dawdling along with its work of uniting the east and west coasts of the South Island. Construction by a private company clashed with his idea of State-ownership. He was also impatient at the delay. The company’s capital was insufficient for the work it undertook, and it was obvious that the contract would never be completed by the company. The colony had assisted it largely by giving it several concessions. When the time for completing the contract expired in January, 1895, only about one-fifth of the moneys required for the construction of the line had been spent. Besides the delay, 5,000,000 acres of Crown lands were locked up. In opposition to popular feeling, Mr. Seddon stepped in and took possession of both the completed and incomplete portions of the line, and Government workmen have been engaged on the work ever since. The company made a claim of £1,800,000 against the Government. The hearing of the case spread over five years. It was taken from an Arbitration Court to the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Privy Council, but each tribunal found that the company had no claim and that its inexcusable delay and wilful breach of contract justified Mr. Seddon’s action in assuming Government control.
In 1905 Mr. Seddon added another item to the list of benefits he had conferred upon the working classes by bringing into operation a scheme for erecting workers’ dwellings in the suburbs of cities. He had given municipalities the power to do this. Several of them had made half-hearted attempts, but nothing resulted from their efforts, and he decided that it was
