The Globe. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1876.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 667, 9 August 1876, Page 2

The Globe. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1876.

We are glad to observe that the Timaru Herald has had the honesty, as well as courage, to speak out boldly on the question of the land fund. Iu an article dealing with Mr Whitaker's resolutions, our contemporary points out how very little real national feeling prevails in the Assembly, and how largely the majority must have been influenced by selfish motives in giviug their votes on that occasion. A careful and unprejudiced consideration of the speeches delivered must, we think, satisfy any one that the weight of argument was in favor of Mr Whitaker. He showed most convincingly that the financial arrangement of 1856 was no more binding on the House than any other resolution passed by it j and tbat the compact

had been broken year after year by the subsequent legislation of the Assembly. We may add that when the colony entered upon the great scheme of Immigration and Public Works, the land fund, as provincial revenue, was doomed. Those politicians who talk of the compact of 1856 as unalterable, forget altogether the numerous changes in it, which have been made since then. They forget that the Assembly pledged the land fund of the provinces for the public works constructed therein, with almost universal acclamation. Surely a House which so completely diverted the direction of the land fund of the provinces, has power to make it colonial revenue if necessary. The power of the Assembly therefore to deal with the waste lands of the colony, and to appropriate the funds arising from their sale, is undoubted. The expediency of such a course is the only question worth discussing. And here again, to our mind, Mr Whitaker's arguments are unanswerable. He showed how unfairly that compact had affected certain districts of the colony, and that it was therefore time that the injustice was remedied. The House had long ago deprived the North Island provinces of the only consideration they obtained in 1856—the right of pre-emption over native lands ; but notwithstanding, the South till now enjoyed all the advantages of the bargain. And what, we would ask, has the result been? Simply that while one part of the colony has been rolling in wealth, and spending it in all kinds of expensive luxuries, other portions have been in abject poverty. Many of our Road Boards have received larger grants than the revenue of the whole province of Auckland. Of late years some of those Boards have scarcely known how to spend their money. A part has gone in supporting highly paid officials, who overlook and direct the construction of unused road and bridges, which may probably carry some traffic a quarter of a century hence. Surely it is of more importance that the people of Auckland should have their children educated, and their lunatic asylum properly provided for, than that money should be wasted in the construction of roads, over which no traffic over passes, as long as the natural track is available. Were the land fund made colonial revenue, it would simplify our finances; raise our credit, and save the necessity for the imposition of fresh taxation on the necessaries of life. Such a result is of far greater importance to the mass of the people, even of the South Island, than the localization of the land fund, which really after all, only benefits the owners of property. Those gentlemen have surely gained enough in the enhanced value of laud, consequent on the spending of the borrowed millions, to afford to tax themselves a little for roads and bridges. We have no wish to raise any class cry, but we unhesitatingly assert, that the day is not far distant when the people of New Zealand will insist on the laud revenue being made colonial, and used in reduction of further taxation. If the owners of property who really have the power in their hands in the House, refuse to impose a property tax, they must be reached indirectly —they must make their own roads and bridges.