ANNUAL ADDRESS. VII. 
ferred,' as a rough estimate of the amount to be gained by assimil- 
ating the gauges of two large systems in Australia. 
Taking Queensland first, and its southern system only, which 
is alone at present connected with the general Australian group, 
1,375 miles would have to be altered and corresponding new 
rolling stock provided. Mr. Horace Bell, m. Inst. c.E., Consulting 
Engineer for the State Railways of India, who had the spending 
of nearly £4,000,000 in such work, is a good authority in this 
matter, and, though he is referring to an alteration from 3’ 3” to 
5’ 6” gauge as against the lesser change now in question, this 
difference does not affect the matter so very much, 
He says in his work on “ Railway Policy in India,” “The con- 
version from the metre to the standard (5’ 6") gauge has so far 
shown that the cost, exclusive of rolling stock willbe from £3,000 
to £3,500 per wile, allowing for the sale, in a very limited and 
decreasing market of the metre gauge material ; the operation is 
one, therefore that cannot be lightly entertained.” 
A rough estimate based on Australian rates and allowing for 
rolling stock would show that £4,000 per mile is the least that 
Should be allowed. The cost would at this rate, for southern 
Queensland alone, be £5,500,000, and the interest at three and a 
half per cent. £192,500, so that to pay the interest alone, no less 
than 3,850,000 tons at one shilling per ton, saving in transhipment 
etc. would have to be assumed as crossing the border annually. 
If we turn to the New South Wales Railway Commissioners’ last 
Teport, we find that the whole of the goods and live stock loaded 
Up in this colony for the year was about 4,000,000 tons, so the 
SUpposition that anything like that amount would cross the 
northern border annually is absurd. The merest glance at the 
figures show that the alteration even of the southern Queensland 
System is not within measurable distance. It might be said that 
the main connection Brisbane to the Border only, two hundred and 
1 This is corroborated by the evidence of the manager of the Silverton 
_ Tramway Co. before the Public Works Committee of N. S. Wales on the 
Proposed Broken Hill extension railway. 
