Rangitikei Advocate. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 8783, 10 April 1907, Page 2

Rangitikei Advocate. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES.

WITH the completion of the Otago Central Railway to Clyde, a total length of about 134 miles, one would have thought (says the Press) that the residents in the district would, for very shame, he content to rest a while without clamouring for further extension. Up to March 31st in last year no less than £1,140,564 hadl been spent on this railway, and a further appropriation of £IOO,OOO was made for its benefit last ses'siom It passes through country so appallingly sterile in appearance that it is a standing mystery to every traveller who passes over the line how it was that Parliament was ever persuaded to agree to its construction. The attitude of the Government when approached by more than one deputation at the opening of the line to Clyde, we are bound to say, was perfectly correct. They intimated pretty plainly their opinion that the line had been carried as far as the colony could reasonably be expected to make it at present, and that it would be far better now to devote attention to irrigating the land already opened up so as to make it profitable, instead of carrying frosh lengths of rails and sleepers into the wilderness. Mr Millar, speaking at the banquet at Clyde, put the matter very plainly and very forcibly. The Government, he said, had two courses before it: either to construct the lines in a business-like manner, pushing the most important lines to conclusion, or to carry on the eixsting system of frittering away the public money in doles here and there. He was in favour of the business-like policy, and he considered that Central Otago had in the past no cause for complaint.

MR MILLAR'S appears to lis to be the sound, honest and statesmanlike way of facing this problem. It is, therefore* a bitter disappointment to us to unci one or two members of the Opposition who were present, kowtowing to the local feeling, and urging 'that the line should be continued in accordance with the settlers' wishes. It is this sort of tiling which makes c>iie > despair of ever seeing pood government established in this, country. One is tempted to ask what is the raison d'etre of the Opposition? Has not one of the strongest complaints made against the Administration for years past, been that it lias used the Public Works money as an electioneering fund to corrupt the constituencies—that the electors in various districts have been induced Wreturn. 'members to support the Government for the sake oE the local expenditure they nope to obtain, and that no regard lias been paid to .large questions of policy and to honest administrtion? Has it not been pointed out time after time that the result of this wasteful and vicious system lias been not only to debaucli constituencies, but to afflict the development of the colony with a blight owing to the loan moneys being frittered away on a multiplicity of useless works, instead of being used to push on the really important undertakings to a conclusion? We are strongly of opinion that unless the Opposition hold firmly to the policy of sound and honest iinanco and the introduction of businesslike methods into the construction of public works, they will simply forfeit any right they may possess to the confidence of the public. The case is serious indeed if the insidious poison introduced by the Government for the purpose of hocussing the constituencies has begun to influence oven members of the Opposition whom hitherto we had supposed to be proof against infection.