The Evening Star MONDAY, MARCH 7, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2132, 7 March 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, MARCH 7, 1870.

Nothing is so difficult to break through as habit. It clings to mankind so closely as to blind them sometimes to the most obvious advantages. Very often the most palpable improvement is ignored because it interferes with established modes of thought or action. Habit has its advantages, and should be used in all human affairs as a most valuable servant. The misfortune is that when once formed it has a tendency to become man’s master. One bad effect of habit is that it often leads to contentment with that which is imperfect in morals, politics, and physics. Accustomed to certain notions regarding social arrangements, even right is sometimes condemned as wrong and wrong is exalted as right. Fortunatelv for human progress this is a doubting age. The theories of our fathers are not altogether accepted as the perfection of wisdom. They have been so constantly proved wrong, that at last even the most ardent admirers of the past feel it necessary to examine the ground they stand upon before adcepting their dogmas as true. It would be well for colonies if the leading settlers would adopt this healthy plan, for new countries form the fairest fields for the adoption of advanced ideas. Colonists take possession of lands unfettered by the traditions of the past. The civilisation of the country they have left is their point of departure ; they have ample opportunity to adopt that which is good in legal, social, and political arrangements, and to I’eject all that has been found in past ages to w’ork detrimentally to human progress. Unfortunately it is just at this point that habit steps in, and interposes for evil. The consequence is that in almost every British Colony the people are found endeavoring to reproduce Home institutions, with all their attendant inconveniences and fetters. England has been a great borrower, and has consequently an immense national debt. New Zealand must follow in her wake, and borrow too. It is unfortunate that the example has been so closely followed that a great part of the national debt of New Zealand, like all the debt of Great Britain, has been absolutely wasted in wax*. Victoria has done differently. That Colony has also borrowed; but fortunately for its inhabitants, its debts have been contracted for reproductive purposes—for railways, reservoirs, and the development of its resources. That portion of the debt of New Zealand that has been wisely spent, for the most part, is the Provincial loans. They have been laid out on roads, bridges, and public works. But it does not appear to have ever entered into the Colonial mind to enquire whether it might not have been possible to have laid out the vast sums spent on roads more advantageously than in reproducing some of the now traditional metalled tracks of Europe. It is now found * that those metalled roads are not sufficient, and that competition with the world’s market renders more economical communication with the interior necessary. So we are now about to do what the merest smattering of science would have pointed out as a primaiy object, we are going to make a railroad. Here again habit is going to drive us into the old groove. At Home railways have been formed by private companies. They have not always succeeded. In fact Parliament took every pains to prevent their success. By their meddling, by six companies alone £1,110,897 in legal and legislative expenses, irrespective of land compensation, was paid—a tax in progress alike heavy and discreditable. Now, between the position of England and Otago in relation to public works, there is a wide gulf. Every acre of land in England is appropriated, and, therefore, no national property is available for railway construction. Even the land has to be bought, and those who had it to soli

took good care that the companies should pay an exhorbitaut price, notwithstanding the'benefits they derived from the line passing through their property. But in Otago the matter is widely different. There is plenty of land for sale, and no bidders for that which has not access to a market. Notwithstanding our habit of thinking borrowing, or at least credit, necessary for the construction of a railroad, it seems very likely that we have too hastily assumed its necessity. It is now more than three years since the Clutha line was projected. Had the time wasted in fruitless negotiations been spent in gradual construction of the line, as funds became available through the sale of land of special value appropriated for that purpose, that line would have been near its completion. It is plain, also, that instead of the landholders being permitted to sponge the Government out of exorbitant prices for the purchase of land sold, all sold land benefited by the railway should be compelled to pay towards the cost of it. It must be very plain that when the settlers bought that land, they did so under the conviction that, the old macadamised road alone would be needed, and an improved class of road would add immeasurably to the value of their property. This will be equivalent to a heavy bonus, and by every possible means that grinding habit so largely followed at Home, of exacting enormous compensation for receiving a benefit, ought to be scotched. We know there are settlers on the line who have liberally come forward with offers to give more than their share of the necessary land, rather than the work should not be done. The grasping habit is too firmly ingrained in others to permit them to follow so noble an example. But it is really a pity that the Government are not in a position to say, “Unless you tax your- “ selves to some extent for the forma- “ tion of the line, there shall be no “ station built for the transmission “of your produce.” There would be a terrible local outcry at first: but ultimately they would be compelled to fall in with so equitable an arrangement. Perhaps it might be that by such a process the lino itself only would need to be formed by the Government, and each township would see the advisability of building its own station on a plan prescribed. In new lines, with land sold in the expectation of their formation, the matter would be different, as a much higher price would be obtained) but by some such plan alone can the old and new settlers be placed on an equality. Unfortunately, they not only hold the land, but dictate how the money shall be spent.