NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 804, 29 April 1910, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

The mystery surrounding the; issue of a 'Harbour Board loan prospectus in London last year is', if -we are to judge from the report of the proceedings'at Wednesday's meeting of the Board, still unsolved. Mk. 0. W. Jones very properly attempted to bring up' the question in open meeting, 'but the Chairman prevented this being done. It is ( true that at tho March meeting of' the Board a motion was passed directing that all' copies of communications relating to loans proposed to be. raised on the London market in 1909 should be submitted to the Board in committee, but it is difficult to understand why such anxiety should lto shown to provont the matter from being discussed. Mr. Fletcher, if we remember correctly, was one of those who most strongly objected to .jß>.jn»'<sh oi the business of wis Board

being conducted with closed doors. Surely, then, this matter is one in which the public are entitled to the full confidence of the Board. Why should citizens be kept in the dark concerning a question '-'of such importance, and one which has excited bo much interest? So far as can be gathered, a loan prospectus' was issued by someone without the authority of the Board. It is also stated that that prospectus contained serious inaccuracies as to the financial position of the Board. The public want to know whether these allegations are correct, and if so who was responsible for the issuing of the prospectus. The public not only want to know, but the public is entitled to know., The matter is one of some seriousness. If a prospectus containing inaccurate and misleading information has been issued, it is liable to do the Board material injury in any future loan flotations on the London market. The Board must clear, itself publicly of any responsibility, and in order to do this it must place the whole of the facts before the public.

In the course of his remarks on railway policy.at Levin last week the Prime Minister made the following statement:—

There was one line m the country which presented a very great difficulty, although the Government was in no way responsible for its construction. He did not want to make any party capital out of it, but, as a matter of fact, it was constructed by their opponenta. It was left as a legacy to the present Government, and it was returning only 7s. per cent, on the cost of construction, which was about .£2,000,000. That fact was being used against the whole of the Southern railway system, in order to make it appear that the railways did not pay. Discussing this_ statement the Napier Telegraph reminds us that- this line was set out in 1894 in a Public Works Act as one of the lines which "may be completed." ,At that time Me. Seddon was Premier and Sin Joseph Ward was a member of the Ministry. "Not only," observes the Telegraphy , "did ' the Government fail to object to going on with this line, which the Pkime Minister'says is a legacy from, his opponents, but it was the Government itself which in 1894 included the. line in the schedule of works to be proceeded with. From-before that time, and ever since that time, money has been annually voted for this lint, with the concurrence of the Government, until now the total that has been voted is .about £2,000,000." The annual loss now amounts to something like £60,'000 a year, on the Prime Minister's own showing. The Government cannot pretend that it was undei any obligation' ■U> persevere with this line. ' It could at any time have stopped the work of construction as it stopped the work on the Lawrence-Roxburgh line. We may supplement our Napier contemporary's 1 comments with ' some 'figures showing the extent of the Literal party's responsibility—the responsibility the Prims Minister would shift on to the shoulders of his political opponents. _ On March 31, 1891, .the total expenditure on the line was £542,480. The Liberal party is therefore responsible for the squandering of a million and a half of the £2,000,000. As to the Prime Minis-, ter's suggestion that the line was an evil legacy from the Liberal party's opponents, we may . quote' the opinion of Mr. Seddon in his Public Works Statement of 1891:

"We shall find that, by tho construction of this railway, : instead of a wild waste, occupied largely by. rabbits, we shall have a thrifty population settled in a. prosperous and productive country." In view of this statement, and the' figures w3 have quoted, the Prime Minister's statement at Levin was a peculiarly unfortunate one for him. :

A correspondent writing on land values in our Farm Page to-day institutes, comparisons between .- the prices ruling in New Zealand, England; Australia, and America for farm lands: The question he- raises is of interest, but the data he supplies are. 'iusuffijcieUt to enable fair comparisons to be made. It is impossible, for instance, to say whether dairying land in Taranaki at £30 an acre is not better value' than farm land in England at £7 10s. per acre,. for unless the carrying capacity of the land and other particulars are given there iB no. means of testing the net yield per acre from each. So also with the wheat lands of America. These at £10 per acre may be really dearer in proportion to the yield therefrom than wheat land in this country at more than double the price. At the same time we have no doubt that a good deal of land in New Zealand is overvalued. This is partly due to the high prices. for our products that have ruled for so long, and the manner in which valuations • have been forced up .for purposes of taxation is also a, contributing factor. Our correspondent, however, will require to furnish further information before a fair comparison can be made.

The discovery that the people in this island are becoming very much alive to tho _ inequitable treatment they receive in the matter of railways construction appears to have occasioned serious misgivings in the South., One of the Christchurch papers, for example, is rather hysterically merry over the following table, which is understood to be an official summary.of the amount of shipping entered inwards (including "coastwise") at the four chief ports in 1909: — Vessels. Tonnage. Auoklsnd ._.." 6,835 1.520.010 Wellington ' MS6 2,775,902 Lyttelton 1,833 '2,130,978 Dunedin —- 651 983,773 Auckland's large total of vessels is due, of course, to tho fact that it includes the large mosquito fleet that plies up and dpwn the adjacent coasts. Our Christchurch contemporary is delighted at the discovery that in the total tonnage Auckland is behind Lyttelton, and proceeds to pour derision upon our Northern sister. Auckland may be trusted to join issue, and the rest of us may mind pur own business. In the meantime, however, wo may be allowed: to point out that our Southern friends are in a rather bad way when, in their keenness to attack Auckland, they resort to a tabic which demonstrates anew the fact that tho North Island is the senior partner in the national .firm. For tho tonnage in respect of the two North Island ports exceeds tho tonnage of tho two South Island ports in respect of inward! shipping by no less an amount than 1,181,191 tons, or over 37 por cent.