The Evening Star SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 2993, 21 September 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1872.

It is occasionally difficult to decide upon the limits within which. Governments should step in to aid private enterprise. Many persons are so impressed with an anti-Govcrnment mania, that they would leave everything to be done privately. There has been too much of this sort of thing in Dunedin, and the City has to pay for it. We need only point to the mistakes on this point in gas and water supply, and probably in the long run the Dunedin and Port Chalmers Kailway. To the spirit of the promoters of all these necessary works the public owe much, and we do not grudge them one penny of the profit that will accrue to them when they are transferred to the Municipal and General Governments. But they point to the class of works that may fairly be considered public and within the province of a Local or General Government to construct. In the Colonies there can be no doubt that Governments must take the initiative in many enterprises that do not fall strictly under the character of purely public works, where the development of special industries would bo indefinitely retarded in the absence of such assistance. This is done in every Colony. In Victoria largo reservoirs have been constructed for supplying certain mining districts with water, although a particular class of labor only is immediately assisted. But had this not been done, the mines would have remained unworked ; for the miners had no security to offer to capitalists for advances made to them ; they were engaged in employment, the returns of which, though, in the highest degree remunerative when successful, are uncertain and somewhat risky ; and the ground is worked by men who have but the slightest possible permanent stake in the couutry. Yet the interest

of the public is better served by rendering large gold-containing tracts of country profitable, through affording employment to largo populations, than by allowing them to remain unworked and a desert. On precisely the same grounds water supply to the goldfields of New Zealand is justifiable, and railways to coal mines, always provided that those who ultimately individually derive special benefit from their construction, recoup their fair proportion of the cost in one form or another. The same line of argument will hardly apply to the Drainage Bill, now before Parliament, for it is not a Bill to pro- / vide for the drainage of a district, whereby a large number of landed proprietors might be benefited, through a work being done tending to convert a desert into a garden. It is neither more nor less than a proposal to enable farmers to borrow money of the Government at a lower rate of interest than they can obtain it from capitalists. It proposes to give farmers advantages beyond what are possessed by merchants and other capitalists. It is a Bill introduced by Mr Murray, who certainly in this instance has laid before the Legislature a proposal that may find favor in the eyes of agriculturists, but will never add to bis reputation as a Statesman, Apart from the objectionable character of the proposal itself, the Bill is loosely drafted, and some of its provisions are preposterous. The three purposes to be secured by it are—l. Improvement of land by drainage ; 2. Improvement of land by irrigation \ 3. Protecting low-lying land and river banks from floods. Now, all these objects are very praiseworthy, and should be encouraged in every legitimate way ; but the real question to be considered is, can they be considered public works! If there were an unsold swamp of large area, or unsold low-lying lands liable to be overflowed by the flooding of a river, and these could be reclaimed and made profitable to the community by the investment of a sum of money by the Provincial or General Government, great public benefit would arise. We have evidence of works of this class in the reclaimed ground in the foreshore of the Bay. But this was done before the land was sold, and heroin lies one great dif ferencc. Mr Murray wishes to obtain assistance for land already purchased, and for land on which money may easily be raised for improvements at current rates of interest to the full or greater amount than he professedly specifies. But the mode of valuation he proposes is one of those curiosities one sometimes has the good fortune to meet with in the development of the agricultural mind. He does not propose that prior to an advance being made, the property should be valued by a competent valuer, but that money may be advanced by Uje u Commissioner,” whatever that gentleman with an undefined ollice may be, to the amount of “half the selling value” of the property. Even the most earnest advocate of special encouragement to agricultural industry will hardly defend a proposition affording such admirable opportunities for dodging and mutual help. When ladies in old times wore toupees nnrenewed for a month, and found scratchhacks in consequence a luxury, they used to do a kindly turn for one another, and bargain, “ Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” We fancy the mode of valuation proposed by Mr Murray would lead to such a system of district back scratching that the public would have reason to regret the day when they agreed to constitute the State a money lender to the farmers.