THE GLOBE. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1882. MR. EVANS BROWN’S MOTION.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2622, 1 September 1882, Page 2

THE GLOBE. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1882. MR. EVANS BROWN’S MOTION.

The motion of Mr. Evans Brown now before the Select Committee appointed en the motion of Major Atkinson to consider the question of special taxation towards making up any deficiency in the working expenses or interest on the New Zealand railways, is, as it were, a farce within a farce. The Select Committee is a farce at this time of session, and Major Atkinson must have known that, when he moved for it. Mr. Evans Brown must also have been perfectly well aware that nothing now could possibly come of his motion. The question is one of the widest, and to attempt to do anything at this time of the day is absurd. It may indeed be argned that there is some chance of the Government’s Local Government Bills being passed into law, and, if there is hope for each important measures being pushed through at the last moment, why should there not be some chance for a reversal of the present Railway policy. But there is one decided difference. With regard to the Local Government Bills, members really do not understand them thoroughly, and have only more or less vagne ideas as to the effect they will have in the future. Bat with regard to the matter affected by Mr. Brown’s motion, members are very well aware of what the effect will be, and a large number of them feel that that effect will in no way suit their hook. It is certain that Mr. Brown’s proposal could only be passed after the severest fight. Even those members who aie now the most anxious to get away, if this matter were to come to the front, would at once throw personal consideration on one side and fight the battle out to its bitter end, for they would never dare to face their constituents were a resolution such as the one proposed carried. Fancy the member for the Dunstan or the member for Mount Ida returning to the bosoms of their respective constituencies and informing their friends that, although they had succeeded in obtaining for them a railway into those inhospitable regions, yet a special tax would be levied to recoup the colony the deficiency arising through any difference between the net earnings of the railway and the interest on its cost. For a moment possibly it would be considered that perhaps the two members were joking with the subject, hut this would only ho for a moment, and the instant the fact was realised that in good truth the deficiency would have to be paid, such a burst of indignation would arise that the member for the Dunstan would forget his years and take horse for the nearest place of safety, while the member for Mount Ida would make the most of his perpetual youth and flee as fleetly down the slopes of hia •laasically named mountain as the youthful Paris used to do whan hunting the wild deer in the Phrygian Mount Ida.

For the return laid on the table of the House on the motion of Mr. Wright showing the net profit of the cost of construction over and above the working expenses yielded by each section of the Hurunni-Bluff railway shows the sort of fate that would befal these out of the way districts if Mr. Evans Brown’s motion were carried. That fate may be arrived at by a sort ef rule of three sum. We will take the following three branch lines, the Lawrence branch, the Outram branch, and the Tapanui branch. These off-shoots from the main line run through moderately fertile country far more adapted for railway traffic than the high country affected by the Otago Central. And yet we find that on the Lawrence branch there is only a net profit of 7s 5d per cent., while the Outram branch makes a loss of 5s 7d pur cent., and the Tapanui branch a loss of no less than 10s 3d per cent., standing well at the bottom of the list of the lines mentioned. If these short lines are such a disastrous failure, what can be expected from the enormously expensive line to which Messrs.Pykeand DeLantour, and indeed Otago men generally, have pinned their faith. It may, of course, be argued that those lines do not pay just because they are so short. But such an argument cannot apply in the present instance. It might perhaps hold water if the longer line were to pass through a rich agricultural district, but the quality of the land in the highlands of Otago is well known, and the loss that will annually be sustained by the Otago Central may bo arrived at by taking the smallest proceeds of these branch lines, and increasing it proportionately with the increased length of the larger undertaking. It cannot be 1

wondered at then that the members for the districts affected would fight to the death against Mr. Evans Brown’s proposal.. With this fact in view, and with the farther fact remembered that the House have persistently ignored the policy advocated at the time of the pass* ing of the original public works scheme, the motion of the member for St. Albans has about as much chance of being of any use as a donkey has of winning the great Epsom event. The whole thing is a double farce, fathered by Major Atkinson and Mr. Evans Brown.

CANTERBURY AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. The Hon. Colonel Beett moved the other day for a Select Committee to enquire into the management of the Canterbury Agricultural College, and stated at the time that there was a very unfavorable impression abroad as to the conduct of tho establishment. After some debate we find that the motion was withdrawn through the end of the session being so close at hand. This is the only part of the transaction that we think at all explainable. We can assure the hon. gentleman that there is no such impression abroad. The member for Lincoln has evidently been getting at the gallant colonel. Canterbury people are, on the contrary, proud of their College, and its great practical utility and the excellent principles on which it is carried on have been called into particular prominence by the fact that it has been taken as a model by gentlemen who are anxious to see similar institutions raised in other parts of tho colony; not to mention the notice the College has attracted in Australia. Colonel Brett should be quite sure of his facts before he moves in such a matter. The member for Lincoln is not the public, and on this question is quite unsupported by a general concensus of opinion.