The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING GISBORNEY MAR, 80, 1906. MINISTERS UP NORTH

Gisborne Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1711, 30 March 1906, Page 2

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING GISBORNEY MAR, 80, 1906. MINISTERS UP NORTH

The recent visit of Ministers to the North has led to free criticism of an interesting nature. While the Wellington Post has been bitterly re proachiog our peripatetic Premier,” the N ,7i. OEperald has been chiding Ministers for not haying had a bottom acquaintance with the fair North. This 'is how the Auckland journal espouses tho cause of tho North and at the same time lectures Ministers for remissness in the past While some bxcuse can be .pleaded for the ignorance of tho public at Home concerning New Zealand; we are at a loss to conceive of any extenuating circumstances for a similar lack bf;k^o'wl6jg9lqi,'. } ''the. part.of our own who are entrusted \vith tjUe administration of the affairs .of the fiolphy,' and on whose decision the initiation and j progress of. public/.works, so essential to the advancemenriand ' prosperity of the country'as a-whole, depend. Mr Duncan, the‘Minister for Lands, has shown himself to bo lamentably ignorant of the character of the land in this part of the colony ; Mr Mills, the Minister for Customs, confessed the other day that in his oyerfancl trip from Auckland to Wellington, along the route of the Main Trunk railway lino; he had looked in vain for the great totara forests which he had been

led to believe . existed somewhere in the centre of .the island ; while Mr Hall*Jones, the Minister for Public Works, who has been touring the East Coast district, admitted that he was “ surprised to. find such magnificent country at, the Te Puky district.” He went on to say that it was “ one of the most widely settled districts In the colony so far ahead of a railway.” He had been “ astonished and delighted ” with the Te Puke country. Hitherto he thought it was only “ a small patch of land,’’ instead of' winch .’he found it to be “ a long wide belt of rich soil.” Until the other day Te Puke

and the whole of the East Coast might have been in Central Africa for all

that Mr Hali-Jones knew about them. And yet he has grown almost gray in the Ministry !

It will be noted that the Ministerial ignorance applies to the North Island only. We venture to assert that every member of the Cabinet would be able

to pass with honors the most exacting examination regarding the South Island—its climate, character, and resources, its roads, railways, and bridges, the quality of its soil, the area of its cultivations, the number of

its sheep, and the population of every (hamlet scattered among its verdant

hills' or clotting its extonsivo plains They know tho South as the Indian hunter knows tho forest!. Every- troo and blade of grass is familiar to thorn. It is only, when thoy come North that they find themselves in a strango and unknown country, and that exclamations of wonder and surprise broak from their lips. Wo should like them to come all togothor. Wore thoy to curtail the length of next session by a couple of months and devote the whole of tho recess to travelling about and exploring for thomsolves the wholo of the North Island, it would bo time and money well spent. Mr Soddon somo days ago likened the Government to tho managers of a vast estate ; but wliat sort of management can be expected whon the managers know only a part of the estate ? It is their duty, to know the whole. : Unless thoy do they cannot claim to be good and efficient stewards. The present system of ihanagement.is a reductio ad absurdum. It is in the Nort Island that tho great unworkod and undeveloped portions of tho national estate lie. Tho South has been roadod and railwayed and opened up. There, as oven the Christchurch Press is forced to admit, settlement has nearly reached its limit. All that Ministerial influence, the lavish expenditure .of public money, intense local patriotism, and favoring circumstances could do has been done. To-day it stands firmly and solidly planted on a carefully-pre-pared past. It is bound to grow in •prosperity, and we wish it well. But the potentialities of the future lie in the North Island, It is here that the greatest progress is to be looked for, for it is here that are to be found the great untapped reservoirs of wealth And production/ and’the greatest room for settlement.' It only requires the magic touch of a truly national policy to advance it by leaps and bounds to : its own and the colony's incalculable advantage; And it is a matter utterly incomprehensible to us that Mr Soddon, with all his political sagacity and kconness of vision, his intuitive-like anticipation of , impending changes, and his push and energy, has failed so conspicuously to realise the true position and to associate himself - and his Administration with the opening up and-the development of the North Island. But let us hope that it may prove a happy augury that some of his colleagues are now beginning to learn something of tho North, and are catching glimpses, even though as through . a glass darkly, of the promised land.