The Evening Star SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 1873

Evening Star, Issue 3285, 30 August 1873, Page 2

The Evening Star SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 1873

The threat of a dissolution, of Parliament in the event of the rejection of the Provincial Loans Bill is reported from Wellington ; although it does not appear to us, from the telegraphic summaries of doings in Parliament, that any Opposition has been so completely organised as to justify the expectation that a party is prepared to carry out a complete system of works, on any other well-defined principle that the Colony will accept. The character of a measure is frequently sis strongly manifested by the nature of the opposition as by the arguments of its advocates. Taking this as one means of forming an approximate estimate of the value of the Provincial Loans Bill, we find its most active antagonists are fcfiey who represent Provinces unable to offer security for local works. Mr T. Gillies is foremost in the ranks. Mis argument is, " pass this measure and public works must be at a standstill with us, for we have no security to offer.” This reasoning analysed means that Auckland lias been looking to continuing the old game of progressing at the cost of the rest of the Colony. Even the proposal to purchase half a million’s worth of land for endowment of these landless Provinces does not suit, because the very proper condition is attached that none of it shall be sold at less than 20s an acre. Verily, there is an amount of impudence in the demands of these Northern men that passes what could have been imagined. We only select Auckland as the type of the class, for no doubt others, in Taranaki, Wellington, and Hawke’s Bay, will be found equally grasping. Mr Gillies is only the mouthpiece, giving utterance to their wail. The objection raised to being restricted to a pound an acre is that the high price will interfere with settlement. We in the South, who find that two pounds an acre in Canterbury, one pound an acre in Otago, and probable three pounds in Southland, do not interfere with or prevent settlement, can hardly understand such an argument ; and are not very likely to consent to the North being alloweu to fix a price likely to allure settlers, through its comparative cheapness, who might otherwise have made our Island their abode. It is very much of a piece with the whole of the proceedings of the Northern Provinces, to got the Middle Island to make a double sacrifice : first, to be at the expense of benefiting the North by large monetary concessions, and then, to allow the use of them, as a means of successful rivalry. We continually hear, from those acquainted with the North Island, of its superior fertility and richness to the Middle Island; and yet, although the land acquired has been disposed of in the most liberal, if not reckless manner, there has been no settlement of the industrial character ot that of Canterbury and Otago. The inference cannot be avoided, therefore, that there is something behind in this resistance to a moderate fixed price per acre ; that the class of persons purchasing landed property in the North are not agriculturists, and that "hindrance to settlement” means too high a price for investment in sheep runs. If, then, this be the true estimate of the nature of the opposition, we in the South must look narrowly to it, lest we are once more sacrified to Northern selfishness. We do not imagine that all the representatives of the Middle.lsland will be found supporting the Government. There is something in the measure that docs not

exactly fit our present ideas concerning public property. Our notions of the j way to deal with it, excepting in the endowment of certain public institutions, have been to convert public into private property as rapidly as possible: to make many lords of the soil instead of one, and excepting in the case of Corporation property, to have a multitude of ground landlords deriving handsome incomes from those who find it profitable to build on and rent the land that might have equally yielded a Provincial revt'nuc. We have yet ample Provincial estate left, and one purpose to be answemd by Mr Vogel’s measure is to conserve and use it. This Provincial Loan. Bill is an effort to do in another form what he proposed at first as necessary to .give stability and unity to the public works scheme. His first effort was to romit to a Board of Works the determination of what lines of railway should be constructed. He foresaw that to leave it to the logrolling of the Assembly was to risk the failure of the whole plan and to retard its progress. Jealous lest the

control of matters should pass from Parliament, that plan was rejected. The patchwork of railways proposed by the short-lived Stafford Government showed how nearly the unity of the plan was to being destroyed. The second effort was to secure localisation of expense by a proposal to tax property through which branch lines passed, that did not pay interest on their construction, to the amount of the deficiency. This manifestly equitable suggestion was also rejected by those whose property would have been so increased in value that they could well afford to have borne the whole cost of construction, rather than be without the line. As neither of those plans was accepted, he has now introduced this third measure, against which the Opposition seems to be sore, if not successful. That the country is interested in its success, there is no doubt; that it will meet with strenuous and determined opposition in influential quarters is equally certain. Possibly the country will have to determine the matter.