Manamatu Herald TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 1881.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue 60, 29 March 1881, Page 2

Manamatu Herald TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 1881.

THE WAIRARAPA DAILY OX THE MANAWAT.U CIRCULAR. There is a newspaper, published at Masterton called the Wairarapa Daily. Whether the diurnal strain upon its Editor is too great for his capacity is uot known, but if one nmyjlidge by results ho is not ihe work. » The-;DaUy, rarely 'wntos upon politics, and* for a very good reason ; for when it does it burlesqueß4!M"*qlflStion with which It deals. Perhaps this is not the fault of its guardian spirit, for if Nature \ has uot been bountiful in its montaf '

gifts to him, why should men complain ? Seriously speaking, the Wairarapa Daily recently published a most absurd article on the Manawatu Circular, and as it would be a great pity to leave that journal in its present benighted state on the matters dealt with by the Circular, we purpose devoting a little space to criticising its criticism upon it. The following is the Daily's criticism upon 'he resolutions embodiud in the Circular : — • The first resolution is one which, with modifications, might be generally acsepted. It might, however, be remembered that there are Counties with Crown Lands, and that there are Counties with none. The Manawatu County is in the former division, and advocates the interests of it specially. The second and third resolutions amount to asking the Government to re-commence granting local subsidies, and to tax the colony to find the money. There is no political economy in any such proposal. The Minawatu County, for instance, might be taxed to the extent of say £5000 to enable the Government six months later to return to it £4000 in the shape of subsidy. BeiDg taxed to find subsidies is very muoh liko puttiug a sovereign up to auction The fourth resolution deals with B trough Councils, and may be dismissed with the reduction that these bodies are sufficiently well represeutcd in the different centres of the colony to be able to look after themselves. The fifth resolution favors teuded endowments, which in Now Zealand have been wont to ba synonymous with bribery and corruption, and have done more than anything ulse to retard 'V> genuine settlement of the country. The sixth proposes a, conference of delegates — an alternative which may cost a good deal of money, but •vill lead to positively nothing. Have not Counties representatives iv the General Assembly ? Is not that body a conference <;f delegates costing the colony some twenty or thirty thousand, pounds a year? Can we afford more luxuries in the shape of delegates ? The fact is, the Manawatu County, instead of returning a County representative to the As3tmbly, sends in a City of Wellington merchant, and when a question such as the present one requires to be solved it finds its interests practically unrepresented. It i 3 a pity that what should be presumably a sensible body of men should have come to such lame and impotent conclusions, or that, having come to them, they should have hawked them about the colony utterly unconscious of the fact that the glimmer of the Mauawatu farthing dip was not a lighthouse. We are afraid that the Hon. Walter Johnston will blush for his constituents. City merchant though he may be, had the County Councillors taken him into their confidence lie might have deterred them from sending through the Colony a set of resolutions which, as a County emanation, will probably carry off' the wooden spoon. Now, we ask, is that a sensible criticism of the extensive propos ils embodied in the Circular ? Regarding the first resolution that relating to the cost of roads in new blocks being added on to the upset price of land and the amount handed over to the County Council for road-making purposes— the Daily admits it might Avith modifications be accepted. \Vhat modifications ? It then, with ridiculous narrowness, suggests that the Manawatn Council advocates its own special interests, apparently targeting that almost every County in the North Island, and a largo number in the South Island, are in precisely the same position as Manawatu, having within their boundaries large tracts of unsettled and unsold lands. The Daily says " thorois no political economy "in the proposals of the second and third resolutions, which suggested the renewal of subsidies upon a mileage '>asis of either constructed or unconbtructed roads, and also suggested means by which the money could be raised. The Daily evidently fails to apprehend the principle underlying those resolutions. That principle is this That it ; s to the interest of the whole country to increase t ixatiou in order to supply the rural districts with good roads. The towns live on the country districts, and it is sound political economy to say to the big centres of population, " You must stand increased taxation if you would Jflfave increased prosperity ; for yoivcannot grow unless the country districts that feed you are supplied with good roads." The Counties would of course be affected by the increased taxation as well as the towns, but the County Council's idea was that by theexpenditure of the money so derived on country roads, " both town And country districts would be equally benefitted." The criticism on the fourth resolution does not call foi tYu-fcker remark than this — That the County < onncil was of opinion that the movement it was initiating was one that needed the co-operation ol all the local bodies, and therefore determined to ally its cause with that of the Borough Councils, believing that to ether they could secure justice from Parliament. The Daily says the fifth resolution " favors landed endowments." Surely tho critic had never read the resolution. It does uot favour landed endowments, but simply says, " If landed endowments ■•.ere given to public bodies " — i.e., FLirbor Boards, Universities or local governing bodies — the same plan should be adopted of adding the cost if making roads t.o tho upset price as was proposed in the fir t resolution to be applied to Crown lands. As a matter of fact, the Council was opposed to landed endowments to local bodies, believing that they result in large areas of laud being tied up uselessly audunproiitiibly. The sixth resolution, proposing a conference of delegates, draws down a torrent of wrath from the Daily. Well, the cost of the conference would be nothing more than a few pounds to each body sending a delegate, whiist the probabilities arc that a united expression of opinion, such as would emanate iroin the proposed conference, would secure from Parliament a thousand fttnes' the cost of sending a delegate.

Upon reaching the sixth resolution the D.iHy evidently hecauie exhausted, as it leaves uneriticised the remaining two. The mental effort was evidently too great, and he had to stop. The remainder of his article is a satire that Pope himself might have envied. \Ve cannot follow him in that. Where his capacity to criticise stopped there our own patience ceases, and we leave tho " political economist " of the Daily to devote his attention once more to such important questions as whether the Master ton town pump should he painted blue or green, or whether the borough lamps should be lighted with wax or wooden matches. The affinity of the Daily is towards -wood.