THE Mount Ida Chronicle. THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1877.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 427, 14 June 1877, Page 2

THE Mount Ida Chronicle. THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1877.

It is reported that a considerable re - dnction in the rents paid for mining leases has been recommended by the "Wardens. The excessive rent paid has often been complained of. Some time ago in this district a memorial was prepared by Messrs. Inder and G-uffie, and forwarded to the Superintendent. We would strongly recommend that the action taken should be repeated, except in this respect, that the memorial should be laid before the Assembly, and that simultaneous action should also be invited on the "West Coast. The Government is not going to grant a reduction of the only mining revenue it has elected to deprive the Counties of unless this reduction is strenuously urged by others more directly interested than its own officers.

To sum up what Las been said and written upon the Interior railway question during the last few weeks may be -useful and can hardly as yet be said to te unseasonable. To take the last, but not the least, earnest exponent of public opinion first. Cromwell is reluctant to abandon its long cherished hope of railway communication by the Clutha, yet sees a probability of the line coming through the Maniototo. Clyde, after a weeks thought, suddenly abandons the Clutha or Teviot line, and throws its weight into the scale for the Maniototo, from thence inclining to favour Outram as against Oamaru. If Clyde and Cromwell had seen some years ago that their interests and Mount Ida's were identical in this a3 in nearly every other respect, the line now being so keenly'sought after by the rival termici of Dunedin, Palmerston, and Oamaru would have been in a fair way of construction from Palmerston. Oamaru is bragging a bit, but ;;t the same time is pulling her hardest. A tender for the preliminary survey is accepted, and the tenderers offer to have the detailed survey ready by the 19ib July, when the Assembly meets. Meanwhile Mr. Blair, the hope and mainstay of a section of the Maniototo Council, paddles his own canoe from Beaumont 1o Balclutha, n© one seeming to know what his railway instructions are or whether he has been instructed to surrey the Pass line at all. Dunedin, notwithstanding the sharp goading of its three daily journals, does nothing—which it can do to admiration. The ' Daily Times ' of Monday last admits the Oamaru argument that if the lines were made to-morrow the grain and wool of the Interior would go the shortest way to povf even though the shipping facilities of Port Chalmers might for many years be better than those of Port Oamaru. The Dunedin argument is avowedly selfish and local, and amounts to this, that at all hazards Oamaru must be impeded and the Interior taxed upon every ton of goods imported or exported in order to keep up Dunedin supremacy. The commercial savants of Dunedin, we are told, know what they are about. They hold the trade of Oamaru iu their bands. They have only to say the word, and these foolisli struggles for commercial freedom now being manifested in Oamaru must cease. The Taieri Council deserves more consideration. As a local governing body the Taieri Council is probably the ablest in Otago or, Except Selwyn, in New Zealand.' The v

grounds urged at the Council board arenot supremely selfish, although there is a trace of the cTSyen hoof "in the for Q-overnment aid; ; ai all events,, we hear nothing of the innate comm6r< ial supremacy of Bunedin, and the necessity of its maintenance at the public expense. Comparison with O_ama.ru is invited by the Council, but on the more justifiable grounds of the country to be opened up by railway- communication on either route. On this ground, Mr. Steward told bis Ifaseby audience, Oamaru also invites comparison, ' ■ ' 7- ; aI "v ~ •

The Interior plains are jealously hedged in by barriers on all sides. There is no royal road to the Interior. The question legitimately "assumes these phases :—A\ hich. route will cost least? Which route mil offer the shortest construction and the shortestpermanent way so far as- the country from Naseby to Queenstown is concerned ? Which route will have the least amount of unprofitable land to go through ? Writing subject to the correction of the Engineer's reports about to be obtained, we say that without doubt the maps are in favor of the Oamaru line on all these questions. Tho superiority in distance is admitted thirty-four miles against sixty-one to a common starting point near Kyeburn or Naseby. The broken and comparatively unprofitable coun-

* try to be pierced by the Pass ia fourteen miles, of which tho Pas 3 itself comprises about four miles ; by tho Outram line to the Sutton Stream tweuty-threo miles ; by the Waihemo and Pigroot Ililla fifteen miles. The country at the hack of Outram is very little if any lower than the Pass country from Livingstono to the Kyoburn Saddle, and is not, in our opinion, bo valu- ' able.. The "Waihemo country is higher than either of tho other barriers, but is at the same time more accessible. Again, at Outram the line at onco rises into barren country. At Livingstone tho Crown has about 20,000 acres of excellent country adapted for agriculture, and greedily looked after by would-be settlers, who can't get it because the Lands Board will not open it. From the Sutton upwards tho land is good, but the pick of tho lower plain has been spotted by tho ranholders, who have bought largely. TYom the Kyoburn Saddle into the plain tho line probably passes through tho top end of tho Kyeburn Hundred, where tho ploughs are now in midwinter showing what tho land is, and 'is tlion within a milo or two of a point , from which, as we have repeatedly pointed out, all lines must follow an identical course. Ou the ground of which branch of the main line opens v the greatest Area of Crown lands at , tbo least expense, Oamaru will win. In regarding the problem from an up-country view, we cannot lay too much stress upon the necessity of tho nhortcst route being adopted. Tbe main trallie of the country must not be .sent into every nook and corner beeauso of a few thousand acres of Crown lands. "Wherever the lands appeal' to justify such curves it will be more economical to construct light branclilotw, as has been done by the Provincial Government in Canterbury. Jl' CTydo or Cromwell requiro manufactured goods and general produce, the shorter the mileage of land-carriage tbo cheaper tbe goods. As to the line, tho shorter it is the les* the wear am l tear and consequent cost of maintenance. It is very much to be hoped that tho Interior will act in unison in this maltvr. as the inlerosis of every ;iart are identical, hosvevc': much vvc may disagree in our view* of proteoling tho«e iiiferesl*. The. rival routes do not nfFoet .Nuseby, ns our < Vomwel) contemporary appears lo think, excepi iu one particular, in which lie also is interested, that !Naseby considers- tho < >amaru line can be constructed many years before any oilier, the expense of construction to Naseby being approximately £3:51,000 a* against iCI'JS.OOO As to position, Naseby is well situated. Neither line will go ocl of ils way to iajti.ro Naseby, or will, reject its fast growing trade as immaterial. XaMcby is only selfish to tbe same extent St. 1 jaihans, Mack's, Alexandra, Clyde, or even Cromwell. She wants to make the best of the fortunate jittraetiou which the public estate.is now receiving from so many iufluc-nliul quarter*.