ANNUAL ADDRESS. xi. 
this address, but it is evident that even a partial assimilation 
would get rid of many of the defects, from this point of view, 
now existing. 
Of course much more data would be required, and an accurate 
estimate of cost and result made, which I understand is now 
being done, before any determination could be come to, but enough 
has been said to show that such a modified scheme, as has been 
just sketched out, is worthy of consideration. 
It is universally conceded that, as mentioned before, whatever 
is expended in the matter should be at the charge of the entire 
Commonwealth, if established, and as a complete unification of 
gauge will no doubt be found to be financially impracticable, the 
only apparent fair way of dealing with the question would be to 
carry out at the general expense the partial change, whatever it 
may be, which is financially justifiable, and also to charge the 
central exchequer with the annual additional working expenses 
caused by the breaks remaining elsewhere. When, if ever, this 
latter charge, by increase of traffic at any break, shall become so 
_ §reat as to exceed the interest on the cost of abolishing it, the « 
alteration might be made and complete unification would be 
advanced another stage. 
As to the past, there may have been some justification for 
Queensland wholly, and South Australia partially, breaking away 
to a smaller gauge, owing to pressing necessity for cheap extension, 
but, even without the present feelings of Federal gush and brotherly 
love, which are supposed to animate us at present, it is incon- 
ceivable, either for the sake of the slightly increased capacity of 
the extra six inches on the one hand, or the infinitesimal economy 
of reducing the gauge by that amount on the other, that Victoria 
and New South Wales should have deliberately adopted a differ- 
ence which has resulted in no practical advantage whatever to 
either of them. 
I have dwelt in this address perhaps, too largely on the gauge 
question, but the explanation is, besides its immediate importance 
