" PEACE, PROGRESS AND PROSPERITY " 245 



miles of railway open when Mr. Speight took charge, the revenue 

 earned during 1883 had been 624,000 ; but after providing for 

 the interest payable that year on the debenture capital of nearly 

 21,000,000 there remained a deficit of 235,000 to be borne by the 

 general revenue. On the 30th June, 1886, Mr. Speight was able to 

 show, with an additional 240 miles open for traffic, a net revenue 

 for the year of 1,018,500, and after providing for all interest on 

 the enhanced debenture debt there remained an actual profit of 

 61,483 to be handed over to the Treasurer. The book-keeping of 

 the Eailway Department had always been regarded as incomplete 

 and unsatisfactory, and it is impossible to say how much of this 

 marked improvement was due to better management, or what 

 portion was the result of neglected maintenance, or to the charging 

 to capital that which ought to have been defrayed out of current 

 revenue. If, as was freely alleged at the time, the latter conditions 

 were made subservient to the desire to show a profit, the result 

 was most unfortunate, for the public promptly declared against the 

 Government making a profit out of them, and so vigorously de- 

 manded reductions in charges that they had to be conceded. In 

 1887 a profit of 40,457 was shown, but the following year, owing 

 to the costs entailed by a deplorable accident at Windsor, the 

 figures were reversed, and a debit of 53,680 had to be passed on 

 to the Treasurer. 



In any case, the results shown in 1886, assuming them to have 

 been honestly attained, led Mr. Service to make the declaration 

 that under proper management the railways could easily be made 

 to pay the interest on the colonial indebtedness ; and when that was 

 achieved, he was of opinion there would still be room for substan- 

 tial reductions in fares and freights. It certainly looked like a 

 reasonable forecast at the time Mr. Service was speaking his 

 farewells to the electors of Castlemaine ; but he had not long 

 retired from office before the firmness which Mr. Speight had 

 shown in reforming the department began to be undermined by 

 insidious political interference against which he failed to make 

 the stand expected of him. Instead of being the commanding 

 figure by whose advice Parliament would be guided in important 

 railway projects, to whose expert knowledge it would readily defer, 



