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South Canterbury Times, Issue 2444, 18 January 1881, Page 2

Wio are accustomed in New Zealand to see the habits and customs of the go-a-head American Republic held _ up for our guidance. When the public cried out against the property tax they were told that the copyright of that incisive altliction was borrowed from America. Unfortunately the property tax is a specimen of fiscal blundering which, the Americans have discarded. Without descending to the blemishes of American legislation, there are systems prevailing on the great Yankee continent -which we may copy with advantage. The opponents of the West Coast railway will perhaps be interested, if they are not astonished, to learn that the system of railway construction proposed by the promoters is in full swing in America, Not only are railway companies liberally encouraged by the United States Government, but the issuing of land grants as an equivalent for the consturction of roads and railways has become a recog-

nised portion of the national policy. Referring to the opening up of the Missis,sipi,Valley the “ Alta California ” savs :—“ The people have been told by “ falsifying demagogues that they have “ been robbed of the best part of their “ property in this grand domain ; by the “ railroad land grants. It would be “ difficult for the most unscrupulous “ hunter after political spoils to invent “ a more disreputable fiction. The land “grant to the Central and Union “ Pacific "Railroads was equivalent to a “ strip-twenty miles wide, through land “ nine-tenths of which would have been “ worthless for a century without the “ road. It was a strip twenty miles “ wide out of a region 1100 wide u ■—one mile out of 55, and.this is the “ only railroad now open from the Mis- “ souri or Mississippi to the Pacific. “ Congress offered a strip twenty miles “ wide to the Atlantic and Pacific for a “ road to be built on the 35th parallel, •' and a strip of 40 miles wide to the “ Northern Pacific, for a road about the “ 47th parallel, and both companies are “at work. These are the railroad land “ grants extending from the Pacific to “ the 100th meridian, or farther East, “ and were designed to give access, as “ we have said to a region 1100 miles “ wide from north to south. The “grants that have been earned and " probably will be earned, have an “ aggregate width of 80 miles. The “ ratio of 80 to 1100 is as one to “ thirteen and three-fourths, or in other “ words, the Government has.-given one “ acre to make thirteen accessible, and “ to bind the whole country together '* with internal commercial and indus- “ trial relations, as well as to supply “ the means of defending the Pa- “ cific Slope in case of war.” So much for the example of America. Major Atkinson borrowed one of the blots of American legislation when he introduced the Property Tax. Will the Government follow a better example in dealing with the West Coast railway of the Middle Island? The “Alta California” after referring to various- roads built by this system of land grants remarks that “all these “ open up the national domain and “ give access to regions that ;will be “ occupied by manj’ millions of people.” The West Coast railway in designed to open up the fastnesses of the interior, and to dcvelope the wealth of regions comparatively unknown.- If the American principle of railway construction is in this instance adhered to, the work of constructing this transinsular line cannot long be delayed.