The Evening Star MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2383, 21 November 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1870.

An American writer truly says :—• *•' Among the great purposes of a na(i tioual Parliament arc these two : “ first, to train men for practical statesmanship ; ami, secondly, to cx- < hibit them to the country, so that et when men of ability aro wanted, *•' they can he found without anxious Cl search or perilous trial.” If this be true of a country, it is not less true of a Province. Our Provincial Council should be a school for politicians ; and yet there is great reason to fear that Mr Thomson’s candid confession that the North Island members are superior to those we send from the Middle Island, has much truth in it. We believe that there are men able to hold their own against the North Island men ; but unfortunately they either do not seek seats in the House of Representatives, or they are not popular. One reason of their unpopularity is that the people do not estimate them by a right standard. Such as Sir Thomson and Mr Mosely have too many admirers to render it possible that men of ability should gain a hearing. They must not imagine that wo have any special objection to them above others of their class; and the only reason why wo mention them particularly is because they take the lead I as representatives of a section of the *

people who have in all ages, and in every country, thrown obstacles in the way of progress. And by this wc know them : they cannot understand nor value the adaptation of modern discoveries to the development ol the wealth of a country. Mr Reid, though in advance of those gentlemen, has not freed himself from their prejudices. His whole career as Secretary for Land and Works, though marked by strict integrity, has been marred by a cautiousness that has paralysed effort—he has evidently been so afraid of doing wrong that he has not dared to do right. This is a great drawback to his usefulness ; and it is to be feared, too, that he lias allowed his personal antipathies to interfere with public duty. We have forborne too long, perhaps, to express our firm conviction that the Secretary has, knowingly or otherwise, been impelled in bis obstructive course by his feeling of opposition to the progressive policy of his Honor the Superintendent. Mr Reid has been singularly unlucky in following out this impulse. Ft led him to adopt most unbusiness-like plans for the formation of the Port Chalmers and Clutha Railways. It led to the blind bargain of contracting for one railway without knowing what sort ot a line it was to be, and of being altogether unable to get anybody to accept proposals for the formation of the other ; it led to throwing eighteen months away in, the proclamation of Hundreds ; it has led to a senseless and prolonged agitation on the land question, which may ultimately lead to the General Assembly assuming the control of our waste lands ; it led to a paralysis of trade and industry, which has ended in the ruin of hundreds ; it led very nearly to a want-of-work riot by the unemployed, and it has led to the commencement of an agitation against industrial development that ought to result in placing men in office better fitted to guide the fortunes of the Province. This picture is not overdrawn, and eveiy assertion is capable of proof. Had we not felt real admiration for many estimable qualifications in Mr Reid, we should in all probability have spoken out long ago. Perhaps we have been too reticent on the subject; but now that the Council is asked to pass a resolution virtually condemning the Government plans, it is time that the opinion of the public outside its walls should be fully and freely made known. We feel the more at liberty to speak out, because we have never expressed unqualified approbation of the plans of the General Government ; and have always been fully aware of the possible difficulties that might result if the representatives of the Middle Island were not equal to their duties. The folly of the position that Mr Reid asks us to assume is this: the General Assembly has decided upon a scheme by which a system of railways is to be constructed throughout the Colony, Now we need not say a word as to the desirability of railways, for our Provincial Council considers the construction of the Clutha line so essential to our prosperity, that they have passed an Ordinance guaranteeing eight per cent, on £400,000 to anybody that will make it. But the credit of the General Government will most probably enable ns to do it for six per cent.—that, is equal to a saving of £B,OOO a-yoar. Supposing we reject the proposal of the General Government, experience has shewn us Provincial credit cannot get the line formed at all, for we have been six years trying to do it without success. If we reject the use of this money, it will go to the development of other Provinces, and wo shall have to pay our proportion of the difference between the earnings of the line and the interest, should there be any loss. This will be the inevitable result of M r Reid’s policy. He may rest assured that though the popular feeling of Otago may, by bare possibility, be roused against the Government scheme, iho feeling will not be shared in elsewhere. "Mr Thomson truly enough said that elsewhere “ they him*, every--1 *• thing to gain and nothing to lose,” and therefore Otago will stand alone, exposed to the laughter of the Colony, for tin-owing away the bread and butter put into its hands because it did not like its nurse. And, as Mr Hay very pertinently asked, what shall wo get in return 1 One of Thomson’s road steamers '! Certainly more powerful than horses, but a necessarily clumsy adaptation to clumsy roads, expensive to work, and only lit for a feeder to the more cheap, durable, and effective locomotive on a well-constructed railroad, A well-written article in an American journal on “ Reviving Yir- “ ginia,” points to means equally applicable to revive Otago, We will transcribe one passage : The cheering sign at present is, that new men are seeking homes, and new capital is seeking investment in Virginia, \V ithout an infusion of new blood and money, the progress of the State would, for a long time, be slow ; because it is not merely by better farming and more various crops that a State can rise to Imperial rank. As the Eyrie Canal made New York, so we _ find every one of the leading States of the bnioii 1

received the impulse toward greatness from some one scheme of what we style “ internal improvement." .Some post mad, some canal, some railroad, the improved navigation of some river, or an improved mode of navigating all rivers, gave the impulse of every State noted for the rapidity of its rise Indeed, the whole history of human progress is summed up in the one word—lntercommunication. Isolation is poverty, barbaric pride, lethargy, and death. The supreme effort of the race is to put every man on earth within easy reach of every other man.