Station Yard, Durban
(The Tower of the Town Hall is seen in the background)
In comparison with other railways in the British Empire the South African railways hold an important position as regards mileage, and the average earnings per mile are more than double the average earnings of several important colonial and Indian railways. The combined earnings of all South African railways working 5000 miles may be taken at £11,000,000 for the year. The Canadian Pacific Railway, working 7000 miles, earned £6,002,061. The Grand Trunk of Canada, working 4179 miles, earned £4,407,016. The Victorian Railways, Victoria, Australia, working 3238 miles, earned £3,337,797. The Queensland Railway, working 2801 miles, earned £1,316,936. The Bombay, Baroda, and Central Indian Railways, with 2764 miles, earned £3,253,866. The Great Indian Peninsular and Indian Midland Railways, with 2800 miles, earned £3,063,066. Comparing with important home railways:—
| Capital. | Miles. | Earnings. | |
| London and North-Western Railways | £118,126,653 | 1941 | £13,812,000 |
| Great Western Railway | 84,424,177 | 2645 | 11,181,471 |
| Midland Railway | 170,550,931 | 2019 | 11,153,792 |
| All South African Railways | 50,000,000 | 5000 | 11,000,000 (approximate) |
These figures show that South African railways make high earnings as compared even with a great railway like the Canadian Pacific, a railway serving one of the most important trade routes in the world, and traversing a rich agricultural country, with a population of 5,000,000, as compared with South Africa’s 700,000 whites and 2,000,000 blacks. The Queensland railways, with more than half the mileage, earn less than one-eighth the total earned by South African railways, while the enormous traffic of the famous London North-Western, with its large capitalised value, only brings in a matter of £3,000,000 a year more than the railways of South Africa, with their moderate capitalisation of £50,000,000.
This comparison should bring home to investors the excellent opening which South Africa affords for safe and profitable participation in the reasonable railway expansion the country still requires, especially is this the case with the two new colonies. Another fifteen hundred miles could well be added. These new railways would have earning capacity little inferior to the existing lines, and the present margin of profits is so wide that a substantial reduction in rates would not materially affect the prospects, because such a reduction would inevitably result in a great increase in the volume of traffic.
The comparison also leads to the conclusion that the present rates are excessive. They have been maintained at their high level through the system of the Colonial Governments looking to the railways for a large proportion of the revenue. The great pivot of South African industry is the Rand, with its goldfields, and both Natal and Cape Colony have for years past taken toll on the Rand traffic, and thereby swelled their own revenues.
The old Free State and Transvaal Governments in a like manner determined to fleece the industrial workers, and so save their own burghers from bearing their due share of the cost of Government. While they were the greatest sinners themselves, they could not with reason ask the southern Governments to take the first step towards moderation. As a consequence, the Rand, dependent for the most part of its food and for the whole of its industrial equipment on over-sea supplies, became one of the most expensive places to live and work in that the wide world knows. Under the new regime there is as yet no improvement; the Imperial Government is looking for revenue. To the despair of British loyalists the old high rates are maintained, with the effect of delaying and perhaps prohibiting the enormous industrial progress which the wealth of the country would under other conditions make possible. All classes feel the burden, and at the forthcoming Congress of the Associated Chamber of Commerce, which will meet at Kimberley, resolutions bearing on the question are to be submitted. The first affirms: “That the railways, being the highways of the country, should be worked solely with a view to furnishing the transit and traffic requirements of the country, and entirely dissociated from the revenual, political, or protective considerations;” and “That the policy of raising revenue through excessive railway rates is an objectionable method of taxation. It is unfair in its incidence, and bears with especial hardship on the inland wage-earner.”
These resolutions reflect the feelings of the whole inland community of South Africa.
