The highest earnings of the government roads were during the fiscal year 1913-14, when they reached $33,640,920. The highest earnings of the several states were as follows: New South Wales (1915-16), $11,296,700; South Australia (1912-13), $3,960,900; Tasmania (1912-13), $534,600; Queensland (1914-15), $6,936,800.
Australia has at last awakened to the neces sity of interstate railway and other means of communication, and Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide are now connected by a main inter state line 1,790 miles in length and, in Western Australia, a system of trunk lines is in a fair way to connect the state ports with most of the important agricultural, pastoral and mining districts by means of an extensive system of branch lines. The latest movement to unify the transportation facilities of the southern half of the Australian continent from east to west coasts has resulted in the connecting of the various state lines and the construction of a Federal government trunk line known as the Transcontinental or Port Augusta-Kal goorlie Railway linking the eastern and south ern roads with the western, by means of a line 1,052 miles in length skirting the Great Australian Bight. By means of this line the state roads of Western Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland have been linked together so as to constitute a means of traffic across Australia from the Indian to the Pacific oceans. This line, or union of lines, is a curious combination which well illustrates the difficulties to be overcome in the upbuilding of a truly national system of railways in Australia. Over 2,000 miles constituting the part from Brisbane to Port Augusta, by way of Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, is composed of various state lines. The next link in the chain, from Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie, over 1,000 miles, is a Federal line, while the remain ing part, from Kalgoorlie to Perth, 370 miles, is under state control. The Federal part of this transcontinental line was begun at Port Augusta in September 1912 and finished five years later. The estimated cost to the Commonwealth was originally $20,228,230; but before the road was completed there had been expended upon it about $34,000,000. This in creased cost was due largely to the increase in the value of materials of all kinds, the ad vance in wages and the alteration in the original plans for the betterment of the road in general.
In Tasmania the principal towns are con nected by a system of lines with branches reach ing out to the mining districts, more especially in the west of the island.
Of the 1,755 miles of privately owned rail way lines in the Commonwealth on 30 June 1915, only 944 were available for general traffic, to a greater or less extent, while 811 miles were used for special purposes.
Australia is subject to a great yearly rush of business when wool, live sheep and mutton are hurried to port. The one-door policy of each state invited congestion of traffic. This congestion was increased by the want of system in the construction of the railways of the country which prevented the use of the rolling stock to anything lilte its full capacity; for the east was •cut off from the west and, as we have seen, one state from another. Another great difficulty, which still exists, was the many railway gauges in use throughout the Common wealth. In New South Wales practically all the railway is standard gauge; in Victoria most of the track is 5 feet 3 inches; in Queensland and South Australia and Western Australia it is 3 feet 6 inches. These various gauges have formed one of the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of the unification of the railway system of the Commonwealth and a strong barrier to cheap interstate traffic. In 1912 there were in Australia 4,222 miles of 5 feet 2 inches gauge; 4,013 of 4 feet 81/2 inches; 10,099 of 3 feet 6 inches; 122 of 2 feet 6 inches; 221 of 2 feet; and 18 of 1 foot 8 inches. The natural result of these railway conditions is that every where in Australia, except where rates are made to promote local aims, freight rates are high, often running from 6 to 10 times what they are for similar distances in the United States. A considerable part of these high rates is to be charged up to frequent handling and transshipment of goods en route between points in different states, and even be tween different points within the same state when roads of- different gauges have to be used for the same shipment. Freight rates have im proved lately owing to the opening of inter state communication in the south and east; but there is urgent call for a still greater improvement.