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object of which is either to compel the humble traveller to go by rail instead of by road or to tax him in order to cover the railway deficit. Railway fares as well as omnibus fares will be raised; and, in plain language, judicious co-ordination means that the former third class passenger will have to pay more whether he elects to travel by road or rail.
3. It is important to state the topographical facts.
The main line of the Mauritian railways is 36 miles long; it rises from sea level by severe gradients to 1,812 feet at the 17th mile, and then descends again to the sea. Between the 7th and the 17th mile there are nine suburban stations where the line passes through the closely-populated area of the townships which send their workers every day to Port Louis. Twelve trains each way take from 50 to 75 minutes for the suburban run of 17 miles, while four of these trains do the whole run of 36 miles in from one hour and three quarters to over two hours.
The competing road has the advantage in length, being only 14 miles long to the end of the suburban area and 30 miles loug to the Mahebourg terminus. The hills on the road are easy and, as the suburbs are very largely constructed along it, this road has a great advantage in convenience. In the case of the branch line to Souillac, the distance by rail from Port Louis is 36 miles and by road 30 miles.
A branch line leads through the Moka district and gives a two hour journey to its terminus, 25 miles from Port Louis, but there is a direct road from Port Louis to the same point, 18 miles long. The North line serves the north and the east of the island with a line 31 miles long and a service of five trains each way, which take an hour and three quarters for the whole journey. The same area is served by two diverging main roads, each a little shorter. than the railway, as well as by a direct main road from the suburban area.
We refer later to the Black River branch which carries goods only this line has the advantage in length over the road, which descends into the district from the suburban area, but the population served is very small.
4. We must express our emphatic disagreement with the pro- posal to force third class passenger traffic back to the railway by the action of a Transport Directorate. Nothing is more striking to the visitor to Mauritius than the excellence of the main roads. They are fully up to English standards in width, surface and curves, and there are no steep hills. They have the special merit of being very cheap to maintain, as good metal can usually be found at site, and the bituminised surface has already had a remarkably long life. The cost of maintenance is far more than covered by the present taxation on motor vehicles. The local omnibus is very light and easy to handle. There is no sign of traffic congestion
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even at the busiest hours of the day and even though the main road is cut by three level crossings. The topographical details which we have given show how convenient the main road systern is, and how it is possible to give a quicker road service over a shorter mileage, with stopping places in the residential areas at far more points than there can be railway stations. The maximum road distance is thirty miles. These facts establish ideal conditions for road traffic.
It is obvious that in Mauritius the railway must lose in free competition with the road as a carrier of passengers and light goods. The natural reluctance of the Railway Department to face this fact should not be permitted to translate itself into a reactionary and oppressive measure. To restrict road traffic would be oppressive as it would affect only the poorer classes and would tax them in order to save the loss on the railways.
5. Our witnesses have been divided on this issue, but we doubt if there would have been as many advocates of road traffic re- strictions if the alternatives had been before their minds in a more accurate form.
unnecessary.
We have seen the suggestion made that the only real alternative is to close the railway. The argument that passenger traffic is inextricably connected with goods traffic and that, if the former were abolished, so also must be the latter, is an argument which is well calculated to frighten the sugar producer whose factory is close to the railway and who could not move sugar by road so cheaply. This argument leads to highly coloured figures as to the cost of building concrete roads to carry all kinds of traffic. But the suggestion is fallacious and the figures are Passenger traffic is not an indispensable adjunct to goods traffic, and it would be preposterous to close down the convenient and profitable traffic in sugar. The reduction of the railway to goods traffic only is more than a possible alternative; this has already been tried and has been successful. It is a remarkable fact that the only section of the line which pays is the Black River line which has no passenger traffic, but has three goods trains a week between crops, and three goods trains a day in the crop season. branch earns Rs.50,619 and costs Rs.40,161. Every other section of the railway shows a heavy deficit, for sugar pays, but passengers do not.
This
6. In spite of this encouraging precedent it is asserted that the reduction of the railway to a goods service would not be effective, for it would still leave too large a deficit. The latest statement embodying this argument estimates the resulting deficit on a goods line as Rs.440,000 as against the present loss of Rs.600,000 on passenger and goods services. This is an astonishing statement. We have already mentioned that the railway costing statistics show a loss of one million rupees on passenger traffic in the face of