Poverty Bay Standard. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. TUESDAY, MAY 16, 1882.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1074, 16 May 1882, Page 2

Poverty Bay Standard. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. TUESDAY, MAY 16, 1882.

In view of the approaching session of Parliament and the pursuance of the just claims of this district for high consideration of its pecuniary needs, we think it not unintereHling to lay before our readers the result of a meeting of the Committee of the Otago Central Railway held at Dunedin, on the Bth of May, at which the following letter from Mr Macandrew was read Macandrew Bay, Saturday evening. My Dear Sir, —I have just received your memo , and regret that. 1 shall be unable to be present at the meeting on Munday r** Otago Central, the urgency of which, both to Dunedin and to New Zealand, has long been an article of my political confession of faith.

You are aware that when I was in office the Legislature enacted that, this railway should be made, and the House of Representatives authorised the Government to set aside from immediate sale a large area uf public land, which, if judiciously administered, would have yielded far more than the estimated cost of the railway. The line in question was an integral part of the policy of 1878. adopt id ui animously, I may say, by the Legislature ; and had it not been that the interests of party have since then been permitted to overwhelm the interests of the country, it would at this moment be open for traffic a considerable distance into the interior. The proposal was. if 1 recollect rightly, that it should reach Lake Wanaka in 1884 (two years hence). What in my mind greatly aggravated the present position was that, there was not in reality the slightest difficulty in giving effect to this pioposal. All that was wanting was the determination to do so. That it was not given effect to we have to thank those who, unfortunately, have preferred the interest of party to that of progress. The tide in the history of the Otago Central, which if taken at the flo d, would have led on to fortune, has been permitted to ebb. Whether or not. or when it may again reach the flood depends on the bulk of the Otago representatives pulling together as one man in giving effect to the Public Works policy of 1878, which secured to Otago not only the Central, but various other lines of more or less importance, It was a sort of compromise which was accepted at the time as fair towards ail parts of the Colony. I need not say that had Otago not been deprived of t e management of its own affairs the railway in question and many otheia would have been things of the past. The following resolutions were adopted : — 1. That in the opinion of this Committee the time lias arrived when, in the interest of New Zealand, the construction of the Otago Central Railway should be vigorously prosecuted, and that in the event of a loan being raised, a sufficient sum should be placed on the schedules to the Loan Bill to complete the line to the Hawea, and that if no loan be raised a sum sufficient to construct the line to the Taieri Lake be placed on the Public Works Estimates for the ensuing financial year. 2. That a copy of the foregoing resolution be forwarded to the Government and to the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, with a request that the Chamber will support the action of the Committee. 3. That the Otago members be requested to support the above resolution in their places in the Assembly. The distance of the Hawea terminus from the starting-point of the line is at the very least 160 miles, the construction of which, at the lowest computation, would not be less than £1,250,000, or a quarter of the proposed loan. The resolutions provide against failure of the loan scheme by asking in such event for a sum to be placed on the estimates for construction as far as Taieri Lake. The astounding part of these resolutions lies in their extreme modesty I Instead of asking for half the amount proposed to be raised by way of loan, Otago, modest, ill-used, generous Otago ! is actually content with a quarter of it! I Credat JudtEus! Of course it must be borne in mind that the quarter so demanded is for one purpose only, and there are several smaller items which Otago will ask for in due course, merely as a reward for her present modest and forbearing self-denial; but they are mere bagatelles, amounting to some three-quarters of a million more, which are of no consequence. Truly the mantle of Solomon has de acended upon Mr McAndrew, and finds evidence in his utterance. Only he should not be so severe. Nobody in sane mind will question that if to Otago had been left the financial management of everything “ the railway in “ question and many others (in Otago) “ would have been things of the past.” There is not the slightest doubt of it. It is true. But it is none the less true that the expenditure necessary to make them so would have been the result of downright robbery from the northern districts, and, paripassu, there is no doubt that any attempt to complete this Railway out of Government funds at all, and more especially out of the projected loan of £5,000,000, is a monstrous and unjust fraud upon us. If these sums are granted to Otago, who has sat long idle in the shade, what remains for us who have borne the heat and toil of the day? The Northern members must make common cause against such iniquitous robbery.

All party spirit must be dropped in the determination to prevent the sweat of our brow being given to fatten the I already unhealthily obese and grasping 'South. We stand here in desperate need of certain funds for public works, 1 and our demands are moderate and well-grounded. If disproportionate sums such as these are granted to the I Southern provinces, our wants must remain unsatisfied. It remains for our Member to show us that no effort will be spared to ensure justice being done us in this matter. That he will prove equal to the occasion we hope and believe, and he goes to Parliament i with our good wishes, and a hearty • assurance that any support we can give : to him in the furtherance of the in-1 terests of the country generally, and , of the Poverty Bay district in-parti-cular, is at his service. To this end ' we ask that the resolutions passed by the Otago Central Railway Committee, as quoted above, may meet with that attention at his hands and those of his colleagues which they especially demand.