The Evening Star THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1869.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 2046, 25 November 1869, Page 2

The Evening Star THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1869.

The Provincial Council, on its assembling, will have to consider how, with the greatest advantage to the Province, 1 the Southei’n Trunk Railway may be constructed. We are totally in the dark as to the difference of opinion between his Honor the Superintendent and his Executive; whether those differences refer to what is to be done or how it is to be done. There is every reason to think that His Honor is anxious to have the work completed, while from the feelers put forth from time to time, which may be fairly referred to one or more departments of the Executive, it is by no means certain that the desire is shared in by the Executive. It is somewhat singular that when foiled in one direction, there is a tendency in a certain class of minds to sink into apathy,' or to devise some scheme more difficult of execution than that which has proved abortive. Negotiations in England failed to secure us the immediate benefit of railway construction. We will not too curiously enquire why. We do not know that it matters much now, excepting to point to us that there may be other ways of securing it, and perhaps with more real advantage to Colonial interests. In public works, as in many other matters, what has been done in England or Australia seems to many the only way by which work can be carried out here. Differences of circumstance are not taken into consideration. Ihe truth is very barely apprehended that the Provincial Government must do here, what in England lias been accomplished by private enterprise. Rut there the construction of railways by private companies has proved to be a mistake and now, after years of trial, it is proposed to take them into the hands of the State, If this is done, it will be at great cost to the country. From the fact that all the land there was alienated, and had to be purchased at immense cost from private proprietors, every line cost enormously more than it otherwise would have done. Juries, in arbitration cases, where companies and individuals are opposed, very often have no consciences, and in consequence it is cheaper to pay more than the value of land than to trust to their decisions. In the Colonies it is by no means certain that the formation of railways by private companies is the best and cheapest way. We cannot see what special mystery there is about a railway that should take it out of the class of public works, and throw it upon the shoulders of a private company to construct. It appears to us that it is equally competent for the Provincial Government to form one class of road as it is for it to undertake the formation of another, A road is a means of communication between two or more places, and the only difference between a bush road and a railroad is that one is of the worst and the other of the best class of roads. If this plain common-sense view of the matter had been taken when first it was known that negotiations had failed to induce capitalists to come forward and form the Southern Trunk Railway, there would not have been the time wasted in idle discussion that has caused so much delay. Let the difficulty be fairly met. Why should the Province be at the mercy of private capitalists, when it has so much valuable land undisposed of? Is it not one of the very objects of selling the land that a portion of the proceeds of it should be spent in making roads 1 And what are the public to understand by the term roads ? Are they necessarily to be long tracks of land, surface levelled and cleared, covered with broken stones, on which waggons drawn by horses shall convey goods in small quantities, with immense labor at two or three miles an hour, eight hours a day 1 In laborious construction of common roads the Romans more than equalled us two thousand years ago. Even their style of laying them out is followed in all its laborinvolving details, without the motives that induced it being present. We defy the world to match the road system of Otago in its provoking difficult ascents and descents of steep and dangerous hills, where in numberless instances slight detours would have made the gradients easy, safe, and pleasant. However such a course might suit the military requirements of conquering Rome, they are manifestly detrimental to the commercial requirements of undeveloped Otago, Even the macadamised road should now be but a convenient feeder to a railway. Our Governments, General and Provincial, seem to have no other idea than to drag us through all the phases that have been passed through with infinite labor and difficulty by our forefathers. What is to prevent the reservation of a quantity of land in different districts specially for the construction of railways ! Is it not

plain that, in proportion to the facility of access to it, its value will be increased 1 There is no occasion to sell it at the upset price of a pound an acre. There are hundreds of thousands of acres of land, which would be eagerly bought on account of their agricultural and pastoral value, were they not so situated that tbe pi-oduoe can not be brought to a favorable market. It is inconceivable how these facts have failed to commend themselves to those who have been elected to conduct public affairs. It is inconceivable how tamely we submit to allow tiro public estate to be frittered away for private benefit almost without thought and without remonstrance. Tens of thousands of acres have been sold at ten shillings an acre, improved, manured, and fertilised by years of grazing upon them ] while those for whose benefit they lay in hundreds employed themselves in exhausting their more dearly pur-chased blocks in repeated cropping. We have been busy improving our estate, and have then sold it at half price. No landowner would be guilty of such folly. He would have appraised the value of his estate ; no log-rolling would have induced him to sell it below its worth. No Island dock, with its rich deposits, would have passed into the hands of a private speculator. He would take stock of his means, and consider how his lands could be improved in value ; and it is for us to do the same. With this motive we shall recur to the subject.