The Evening Star. FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 2866, 26 April 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star. FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1872.

The political calm of the last few months has passed away, and in anticipation of the sessions of the Provincial Council and General Assembly, members are meeting their constituents, Mr Dillon Bell has spoken at Invercargill, Mr Reid at Outram, and other meetings are talked about, besides some few elections. Amongst the difficulties foreshadowed in the next Parliament, according to Mr Bell, will be an attempt to stop the whole plan of immigration and public works, on the ground that it is an expense the Colony is unable to bear. We think it very likely this will be the and battle-cry of the Opposition. It is at all times a favorite ruse, very often a dishonest one, and most unquestionably, when honest, based upon ignorance of the commonest principles of manufacturing and commercial development. Dismissing as unworthy of discussion the party aspect of the case, because relating merely to the personal construction of a Ministry, and dealing only with the honest objectors to immigration and public works on the ground of expense, it is worth while to point to the root of the fallacy which underlies their objections. They have not learnt to regard the Colony as a large industrial community, living on a territory of almost boundless wealth, which only requires to be economically worked to yield ample income to every investor. If any one of these objectors will take that view of the case, and consider himself a shareholder in this joint stock company, then divide the country into industrial sections, ask himself what is necessary to develop the wealth of each section, and what machinery is necessary to work the whole at the least possible cost, he will arrive at a very different conclusion from the man who very foolishly told Mr Bell he would be content with common roads. Such men seem to regard investment in railroads as what they term “ expense,” evidently not being accustomed to consider the exact import of the words they use. If machinery is necessary to success in any industry, the money laid out in procuring it is an investment to save “ expense,” using that word in the sense in which alone the objection is of any force. Mere outlay on reproductive works is not “ expense,” as understood by such objectors, In their ideas, “expense" is waste, and it is absolutely necessary to keep watch upon eveiy administration in order to prevent works of utility being made too expensive. If they cost more than they ought, there is WAS te—“ expense,” as understood by the objectors; but if they are made economically and judiciously, they become indirectly if not directly, a source of profit—a saving of “expense.” Take forinstauce two forms of industry, agriculture and pastoral pursuits. The objectors say, if you {make a railroad into such and such a district it cannot pay : there are no inhabitants. Ask why there arc no inhabitants ; they tell you the land will not pay for cultivation. Inquire why it will not pay for cultivation : the answer is the produce will not pay for bringing to market. And the reason why it will not pay for carriage to market is that even were there a good metalled road, the keep of men and horses during the journey would be more than the value of the produce beyond the cost of growing. If, then, there were no means of overcoming this difficulty, the land must remain unsettled, until, in the slow growth of population, a market goes to the land instead of the produce of the land to the market. Precisely the same reasoning will apply to the squatting interest, so far as it is dependent upon the sale of meat for the market, and remotely as regards the fleece. Wool pays to bring to market from great distances in the interior, simply because great value is locked up in a small space. But it is a poor use to] make of a rich country, capable of supporting a large populasion, to doom it to be an aggregation of sheep runs and cattle stations. To wait until the objectors to public works think the Colony justified in incurring the cost of railways, would be to confine the squatters to depend mainly upon one branch of their industry for profit—the growth of wool. Even the new development of meat preserving depends much for its success upon cheap and rapid modes of communication. Our contention is that the system to which these objectors would confine us is too expensive. Our produce by it costs too much. As an industrial community, we cannot work to a profit if we have not machinery to cheapen production, and to enable us to compete with other nations of the world. If we allow ourselves to be brought to a stand still by men so short sighted as the proposed opposition are intended to be, all our preliminary outlay will be wasted, our reviving and developing

industries will be paralysed, and we ourselves shall become a laughing stock to all civilised communities throughout the earth. We cannot afford to stop — it would bo too great an expense.