124 OUE COAL AND COAL POETS. 



the coal liue bj the first planned and easier approach to the table-land at the 

 back of the Bulli Mountains (where it was j^roposed to lift the coal from the 

 dip) would have made the railway project cheaper, although not half as 

 efficient, as by adopting the amended and more expensive proposed approach 

 to the coal at the outcrop on the easterly side of the range, and which altered 

 proposal presents the further facilities of opening out all the Illawarra lands 

 for their surface as well as for their coal value. 



Assuming that the line from Port Jackson to Wollongong only should cost 

 £500,000 — with railway dam, or perhaps bridge at Greorge's River included — 

 still I repeat with confidence that perhaps even the very first year of the 

 railway being opened it would reach a return of 5 per cent, on all the capital 

 invested, besides covering working expenses and wear and tear of rails and 

 engines ; and all this by reason of the coal trade only, without the aid of the 

 passenger and other produce and goods trade with Illawarra, and without the 

 help of that suburban traffic which would be sure to arise from Greorge's River, 

 whether by the direct route between Canterbury and Cook's River, over the 

 hills and over the valley of Wolli Creek, or by the longer but much more level 

 route by the neighbourhood of the Seven-mile Beach, and on by the Cook's 

 River valley to Petersham and Xorth Balmain, or on to Newtown and Sydney. 



Every succeeding year would increase the income of the line very largely, and 

 eventually it would be so prohfic in its returns tliat the excess of the profits 

 would cover a great share, if not all, of the losses that must accrue to the 

 Grovernment by reason of the necessary extension of the new forming railways 

 to the sparse inland population, and by the comparatively small and non- 

 paying carrying trade of those countries. 



At 2s. 6d. to 3s. a ton on only 200,000 tons a year to be sent up by the Illa- 

 warra proposed line, and which is only at the rate of just ^ fifth part of what 

 Kewcastle is now shipping so sluggishly, the interests of money, with working 

 expenses, would be covered. And as the demand would be sure to increase 

 by reason of the facilities that would be oflered by direct and prompt deliveries 

 in Sydney, and without that breakage of the coal which is caused by tran- 

 shipment to the steam colliers, and worth Is. a ton, so would the annual 

 returns of the Southern railway coal traffic increase with such probable rapidity 

 tliat the demand and the " out-put" would increase at the rate of at least 

 100,000 tons a year for many consecutive years, if not perhaps permanently ; 

 and 2s. 6d. a ton freight on each extra 100,000 would represent 2\ per cent. 

 more interest on the original cost of the line of £500,000. 



Such being the case, I would also venture to say that we should find that 

 the earliest customers for the Illawarra railway would be represented by those 

 Colliery Companies already in existence at Bulli and at Wollongong, and which 

 now do all their irregular business by means of steam colliers. Their pro- 

 perties would become doubled in value, and the general coal trade from thence 

 would probably grow into enormous proportions, whilst Sydney and Illawarra 

 would derive such accession to their population and prosperity that it would 

 be soon shown that there is much more material wealth and healthy industry 

 arising from a coal and iron trade than from all the combined efforts to grow 

 rich by the treacherous production of gold. 



