The Southland Times. WFDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1,1566.

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 213, 7 February 1866, Page 2

The Southland Times. WFDNESD AY, FEBRUARY 1,1566.

[n a recent issue we noticed an article )f our contemporary the Lyttelton riMES, animadverting on the conduct jf the General Government in sanctioning the granting of . 25,000 acres in Southland for the purpose of finishing bhe Bluff Harbor and Invercargill Railsvay. The whole tenor of the article in •question cannot but lead to the conviction that the writer was influenced by all the worst feelings engendered by the provincial system. Envy and all uncharitableness are as indelibly stamped on the face of the production as is extreme ignorance of the facts of the. question upon which the writer treats. Indeed, it is pretty obvious that the. chief anxiety of the Lyttelton Times is, like the barrister who had " no cause to abuse the other side," and make it appear henious in the eyes of the public, even at the sacrifice of truth and fair-play. The first statement is, that : — " Southland is in a state of bankruptcy ; " the General Government having been " compelled to undertake the payment of " all the provincial debts." If, from this it is argued, that because Southland had not a balance in the bank wherewith to liquidate her entire liabilities at once, she must be considered bankrupt, our eontemporary would be right, and she would find herself in the same list with Canterbury, and Otago — and the G-eneral Government which has taken our liabilities on its shoulders. As, however, our debts do not amount to more than five hundred thousand pounds ; while our assets in land alone, prior to the coming into operation of the new Land Aet, were two million four hundred odd-thousand acres, we have little hesitation in saying the writer is wrong. A merchant in business while possessing assets far in excess of his obligations may be put to serious inconvenience by sudden pressure or inability to realize at a moments' notice, and yet may be considered solvent. Had the price of land not been raised just at the crisis of our affairs, in all probability we should have been able to pay the interest of advances made on unsold debentures, and the Lyttelton Tlmes spared the opportunity of being loud in lamenting on behalf of the colony, the acts of the General Government, in its transactions with Southland, and the necessity of justifying such by mendacious mis-state- - The old adage, " misfortunes never come singly," was never more thoroughly exemplified than in the financial embarrasments of Southland. The loss of a favorable sale for our debentures, by a slight error in the form — the sudden rise in the money market — the general discredit into which all New Zealand securities fell — the mistaken tenacity with which the then Provincial Government, held to their being floated at par and not under — all operated, with combined power, to drag down the Province and plunge it into unforseen difficulties. The final blow, however, was struck by the General Assembly itself in raising the; price ofland, in defiance of the wish of the people, and in the face of opposing resolutions of the Provincial Council, while during the same session it passed a more liberal Land Act for a neighboring Province. That the affairs of the Province have in the past been greatly mismanaged it it would be folly to deny, but that the mischief done is irremediable is untrue, as it is also the statement that our difficulties are attributable to the, imprudent commencement, by the Provincial Government, of "speculative public works." If by this is meant the scheme for opening up the interior by Railways — the sole redeeming feature of the past, we hold to be the initiation of such works— again we say, the writer is ignorant of~his subject and unjust in his conclusions. Had the Government been as prudent in all matters, and not trenched for other purposes on the funds obtained on the security of the Loans^advanced for the construction of our Bailways — they would have been finished long since and have proved a success. Had both lines of Rail way been completed when anticipated and intended they would have paid and paid well. This is clearly demonstrated by the actual traffic returns of both goods and passengers over inferior roads, irrespective of bhe increase which might naturally be expected to result from their continuation and union with others, which experience proves has invariably followed bhe construction of Railways. . At the time these works were initiated, the future jeemed bright and promising. The following year the exodus to the West Doast diminished the great population' of ;he Wakatipu and adjacent Goldfields j ind thus the traffic must have been naterially reduced. Yet taking the two rears together we believe the works iw\\& have proved of a remuaeratiYe 'Mmtw toetty, %b is »$ merely te

this light however that we should regard a such works — it is not solely a question of t so much per cent on a return on the i money expended. — The indirect benefit c conferred ought to be taken into con- 1 sideration. In the " Eeport of the ( Commission on Eoads and their con- c truction," Otago, 1863," the unanimous conclusion arrived at, after i careful consideration was, - " that the i " benefits derived from the construction 1 "of Railways, in settling the country, ■„ " and the great saving which would be . " effected by them in the making 3 " and maintenance of common roads, 1 "would be cheaply purchased by 1 " a loss of more than two per cent: on the ; "outlay." , . It has been remarked of the Grand '• Trunk Bailway of Canada, that although it was made thirty years too soon for the shareholders it was not made. -owe hour- too : . soon for the colony. In this Province the level nature of the country through which the main thoroughfare passes, admirably adapts it for the construction of Eailways:- The entire absence of metal militates materially against the construction of a road capable of bearing heavy traffic. "We have spent upwards of one Hundred Thousand Pounds in roads ; yet there is hardly a viable road in.the Province. The lowest estimate for maintaining main-roads in Otago, is we believe, from three- to four hundred pounds per mile per annum. To make them reproductive would require such a net-work of toll-bars as, would never be tolerated by the public. Nor must we forget that our Eailways are not merely Provincial, but Colonial works. The Bluff Harbor and Invercargill Eailway is the first portion of the " through line " in the Middle Island, which every one appears to anticipate will become the chain which will bind all the Middle Island Provinces together — which will cement a union producing strength. In this point of view it may possibly be deemed as important an undertaking as the much boasted Lytellton and Christchurch Eailway. If the "Whakitipu Gold "Fields are at present suffering from the last excitement of a fresh field on the "West Coast, it is only a temporary check. Two years hence there will be as large a population — a permanent one — as there ever has been in its palmiest days. Our Northern Eailway when completed — completed it will be despite the opposition of our Canterbury contemporary— will be the feeder to all the Northern districts. The petty jealousy and unaccountable display of spite which has emenated from the Lyttw^ts Times, is such as we could never have expected — it displays a lack of forethought a "nut shell " grasp of the great subject of Eailways, which we could scarcely have conceived possible with a journal which has so long striven tp create the impression, that it did not see all things though Provincial spectacles. It is plain, however, that our contemporary would rather see the tens of thousands of pounds already invested in the Bluff Harbor and Invercargill Eailway utterly thrown away, than the expenditure of £25,000 incurred in order to complete it. He evidently does not take into calculatipn the fact that our assets — the "Waste Lands — would be ? materially affected in value, were the Eailway in question left in an unfinished state ; while the completion of, the works would have a contrary effect.. The completion of these works would render land in the interior almost as valuable as on the seaboard. The chance therefore of our being able to meet our liabilities is increased and the threatened dangers of the colony having to meet them for us, so much depreciated by the Ltttelton" Times, is diminished. Our contemporary states :— " The " General G-overnment * have been com- " pelled to undertake the payment of all " the provincial debts." This we deny; most emphatically. We certainly never required them to do so, nor do we consider the " Southland Debt Act " the best means of extrication from our embarrassments. It implies a complete state of bankruptcy in the Province j it impounds i our land fund, in exchange for which — should it' be insufficient to clear us in two years — it offers the creditors of the Province General Government Debentures at sixper cent, at par; thus placing Southland in an exceptional position to the other Provinces. These have from twenty, to thirty years to extinguish their debts, and can continue to borrow on their land revenue ; we must liquidate ours in two years, and net be allowed to expend anything on publie works, however important they may be, until, this is done. Had the Weld Ministry- remained in power we - would have obtained all we required ; a loan bearing the guarantee of the General; 1 Government, sufficient to cover all; our '■ liabilities (our present loans being with- \ drawn), the price bf land reduced to one i pound per acre, with free selection, which J would have enabled us easily to have : t paid the interest and sinking fUnd of the j new loan, and permission to take our local j acknowledgments in payment for land, by T which arrangement w§ should bave beea { able to \i m Qle^4 qS 1 th© m\&\ cbw'gsa t

igainst the Province at once, and reduced p he amount of our debt to a compass, the y nterest and gradual liquidation of which f< :ould have been safely undertaken by us. \ For future loans Canterbury and s Dtago will have to obtain the guarantee ; c )f the G-eneral G-overnment ; this was all 1 we wanted ourselves. We cannot see * ;he justice of Southland • being required t to extinguish her debt in two years, while J ber neighbors have thirty to do it in. Although there is much blame to be * attached" to "the" late Provincial Govern- - ment, for having got the Province into an [ embarrassed position, there is some censure due to the General Government i and Assembly. If we got into difficulties ': to extricate ourselves from which, under the Provincial; system was impossible, the General Government and the Assembly, with whom the power lay, neglected tp exercise it, until so long a time had elapsed, that those difl&culties had been considerably increased by the delay.' If while squalling about the "seat of Government" and the best specific for settling the Maori question, the Assembly had three sessions ago, condescended to take into its consideration, the financial condition of the"Provinces generally and Southland in particular, we should have been in a very different position now. Let us hope that ; our Canterbury contemporary may be saved the humiliation of realizing the painful fact " that those who live in glasshouses should never throw stones."