The New Zealand System.

This system provides for four stages of seven miles each on every line starting from a town of 6,000 or more souls, two from a town of 4,000 souls, and one from towns of 2,000, with intervening, stages of any length up to fifty miles.

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Passenger fares are fixed at 6d. first class and 4d. second class for the whole or any portion of a stage, no matter what its length may be. In time these fares will be reduced to half the amount.

This system is the exact reverse of all existing systems, including the Hungarian and the Austrian, which all greatly favour the thickly populated districts and great cities; my system greatly favours the thinly populated districts and the small towns.

Under all existing systems the protection given to the crowded districts is continuous and ever increasing. Under my system the protection given to weak country districts and small towns is only temporary, to enable them to acquire population and strength, and as they do this they will have to pay their full share of transit charges, and the great centres will be proportionately relieved. Ultimately all fares and rates will merely be charged to and from certain centres of population, and the burden of transit charges will be equally distributed. (See Pamphlet 3, pages 5 and 7.)

Under such a system as this, it is impossible that 6 per cent, of the users of railways could be, as they are now, compelled to pay 37 per cent, of the transit; charges of the country.

The great distinctive feature of the New Zealand system is this: that under it all fares and rates are based on the location of population, and consequently that each district will help to bear the burden of transit charges in proportion to its ability to stand the strain.

Another distinguishing feature is its great simplicity; any intelligent boy of ten years' old could understand it.

I do not propose to do away with season tickets, but would abolish the present system and substitute a new one that I believe will give better financial results, and much greater facilities to the public.

I propose to manipulate goods traffic on the same system as passenger traffic, and am prepared to work out a new goods tariff whenever am placed in a position to command the necessary information.