The Evening Star. FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2545, 14 April 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star. FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1871.

The new Executive ought to command the confidence of the Council and of the Province. The Secretary and Treasurer arc not untried men, nor men who represent one of two special interests holding opinions at variance, on account of conflicting claims. Their private interests depend upon the prosperity of every class of producers ; and the richer the people become, the better for them. It may be said with truth, that the same may be affirmed of every industrial class; but there is this difference ; merchants have no immediate advantage to gain in obtaining the use of land. It matters little to them whether corn or wool forms the staple in which they deal; they arc equally the medium of distribution of agricultural and pastoral produce. Our misfortune in Otago has been that we have for some years been too exclusively occupied in devising land schemes, to the neglect of those other resources, which, developed, on account of the more easy realisation of their results, would have tended to add immeasurably to the wealth of the Province, We have all been absorbed in the squatto-clodocratic war, to the neglect ot our goldfields, our coalfields, and those rich mineral deposits that lie in such abundance beneath our feet. The consequence has been that, in every other respect, the Province has been allowed to drift as chance directed. An official staff has been retained, waiting for the treaty of peace between the contending parties ; expenses have been going on, and revenue has been falling off; so that now that a new Executive has been formed, they inherit an empty Treasury chest, and will have the unthankful task of throwing overboard a quantity of dead weight in order to right the ship. This is the inevitable result whenever men, provinces, or nations can sec no further than what appears their own immediate interests, and are too much absorbed in the selfish contemplation of them to imagine it possible thenown view may be only halt right. Just as the war between France and Prussia deranged and paralysed the commerce of the world, the contest between squatter and farmer or settler—if the latter term imply anything more—has brought the affairs of the Province to nearly a dead-lock, and skill in organisation and finance will be required to restore the position of the Government to a healthy condition. On these grounds, we think the choice of an Executive has been judicious, and not the less as Mr Haugiiton has been added to it; for his knowledge of, and intimate connection with, the goldfields render him

well able to suggest steps necessary to vender them profitable. We have endeavored constantly to point out their value, and drawn attention to the systematic neglect with which they have been regarded during the last two years. The fact is, an attempt has been made at a sort of lopsided advance : we have been trying to shove agriculture to the front, under the old half-true idea that it was of supremo importance. In consequence of this magnifying of one interest in the eyes of our Executive, all others appeared to them to sink into nothing by comparison with it. Their object was to settle men on the soil, and to make them producers of grain, and butter, and hogs’ flesh, seemingly forgetful that half an acre of rich goldfield would give fortunes to twenty times the number of men who could earn a bare subsistence on a hundred acres of agricultural land. Moreover, another great fact has been lost sight of that should ever be borne in mind in all attempts at industrial organisation : the chief inducement to the cultivation of the soil is a ready market for produce. Had there been, therefore, one-twen-tieth of the care given to the working of our goldfields that has been bestowed upon the agricultural interest, Otago would, in all probability, have had a much larger population upon them, and in consequence of the consumption of food, a much greater breadth of land would have been under crop j and there would have been a constant and increasing demand for mutton and beef. This would, to a certain extent, have superseded the necessity for seeking outside markets, while all tradesmen, all classes of distributors, would have shared in the consequent well-to-do of the Province. We do not suppose this land war settled yet. Like the surveyors who differed about the ownership of an instrument, neither can use it until the proprietorship is definitely decided. Unfortunately, squatter and settler cannot be compelled to submit to the arbitration of even the highest Legislature in the Colony in their dispute about the land so that, as they are quite able to stand up for themselves, the best way will be to let them have their wordy war, taking care at the same time that other interests are developed, and then, in spite of themselves and their mutual distrust, they will advance and get rich. This we consider will on every ground be the wiser course ] for it is capable of demonstration, through reason and the experience of other countries, that every plan of every land reformer is open to objection to one pretext or another.