The Evening Star TUESDAY, JUNE 7, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2210, 7 June 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, JUNE 7, 1870.

In the true spirit of narrowness of mind, the country members opposed a subsidy to the Corporation of Dunedin last evening. Throughout the world it is scarcely possible to find more intolerant jealousy of the claims of Dunedin than is exhibited by the up-country party. The City contains nearly one-half the population of the Province. Upon its prosperity all the up-country districts depend for the best market for their produce. Destroy that prosperity, and the Shepherds, Moselys, Hutchesons,, et id genus omne, would soon discover that they had done the very worst possible job for themselves and their constituents. They may imagine that in their tirade against expending money on Dunedin, they are currying favor with the upcountry electors, and perhaps it may be so ; for unfortunately it happens that the ignorance that prevails upcountry is largely represented in the Council. They boast that the prosperity of Dunedin depends upon that of the up-country districts, and nobody denies that to a certain extent this is

true, although it is not necessarily so ; for wherever there is a fine port with an industrious population, it has always been found easy to obtain means of living and prospering irrespective of inland trade, and Dunedin is no exception to this rule. Its prosperity is not solely dependent upon the interior of the Province.. As the principal port of New Zealand, its merchants and manufacturers draw their profits from the population of other Provinces as well as from the inhabitants of Otago. Were it not so, the settlers who use such strait-laced arguments about Dunedin being dependent upon them for prosperity would soon find the market for their produce curtailed, their profits reduced, and their sheep and cattle and corn increasing on their hands until they became of no value. But this is not the way to look at the question. It is strictly a matter of justice. A large portion of the revenue of the Province is derived from a return of the proportion of Customs duties collected in the Province, and it may be safely affirmed that of that Customs revenue the inhabitants of the towns contribute far more than their proportionate share as compared with tire residents in country districts. This only needs a moment’s reflection to lead to conviction of its truth. The mode of living in towns: —the increased expenditure of the inhabitants in dress, furniture of their houses, and style of living—the consumption of articles of import paying heavy duties, all point to the vastly more than proportionate contributions of the one class to the other. But settlers, like all other men clodocratrcally brought up, conceive there is something about them which entitles them to be the pets of the community. We do not know what it is they have to boast of. It cannot be said it is their amiability, for notwithstanding the dreams of poets, we much prefer the society of a well-educated, intelligent town belle to the general run of shepherdesses from Arcadia ; and as the swains generally take their cue from the qualifications cf the nymphs, what is true of the one can be affirmed of the other. It cannot be their generosity, for of all men clodocrats are the most selfish as a rule. If the rest of the community were starving, they would impose a duty on corn, if they had the power. It cannot be their intelligence, for if they have light, they contrive to hide it so that it looks like darkness. It cannot be sympathy with their race, for outside their farm yards and piggeries they cannot meet at a district road board without disputing amongst themselves as to who shall have a foot or two more of advantage from the road rate than his neighbor, and very often how they oan elude payment altogether. It may be said they do not put these mental characteristics forth as claims upon the nursing sympathies of others ; they base them upon their helplessness. They cannot make their callings pay unless other men are taxed for,their support. So on the same ground of injustice they would appropriate revenues to which others are fairly entitled, to be expended on up country property. The Oamaru Times, one of the best clodoeratic journals, has broached a new theory of what is termed “ class legis- “ lation.” The discovery is made that the objection to “ class legislation ’’ (is that it means legislation by a class , not for a class, and argues that the latter is justifiable, though not the former. It is hardly likely that there will be one without the other, for all but the class must be blind indeed to the first duties of legislators to impose equal burdens upon all classes, if .they consent to legislate for a class. The misfortune of the Provincial Council is that there are too many of one class in it, and that most of them have been brought up in that class—they have not been grafted into it; and they have no ideas beyond it. They cannot see the advantage to them of Dunedin. They view it just as merchants of old used to view the riches of other countries, when envy so blinded their eyes as to lead them to imagine the destruction of those riches would be gain to themselves. It is only lately that the truth has dawned upon nations that by amicable interchange they as surely enrich each other, as by war they surely impoverish each other. Perhaps some day, when the Shepherds, the Mosleys, the Thomsons, and the Hutchesons of our Council are remembered only as men too far behind the age to be entrusted as representatives, the truth may dawn upon their minds that in improving Dunedin they would have taken one of the wisest steps to improve Otago and their own circumstances.