The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1912. UTILITY OR ART?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 204, 8 May 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1912. UTILITY OR ART?

The philosophy of the country-side is generally embodied in tablet form in quips and adages that are, as a rule, full of what is known in the vernacular as "horse sense." One of theac apt epitomes of onsight advises that people should "walk before they run." Nowhere is this sage philosophy better applicable than in a new country, and New Zealand, whilst it has made a progress unequalled in the history of civilisation, is still a new country. It has, in fact, found its feet so solidly that there are not wanting those among us who are disposed to break from the safety of our present walk into the hazard of a more impetuous progression. The moral of this little homily applies to the proposed building of a new railway station at Wellington at a cost approximating to half a million of money. We are glad to find that the Government has postponed starting the building of this palatial structure for at least a year. When that year has elapsed, it is to be hoped that the work will be postponed for another ten r years. Thoße question, of course, that the pf&ent Tailway station at Wellington lis not in keeping with the requirements of. she traffic, but it could certainly be enlarged and made decently adequate at a tithe of the amount that it is proposed to spend. We are being continually told, when demands are made for urgent public works in the country—the roading of the backblocks, the bridging of oux rivers, the opening of our lands for settlement, and the provision of more school facilities in the "never never land"— that the Government would gladly undertake the works if funds permitted. Yet in the meantime vast sums are being authorised for the building of railway stations, post offices, public works buildings and other elaborate departmental structures in the chief centres of the Dominion. As a result, the country is being studded with lordly official palaces, with unnecessary cupolas and verandahs and mortgages upon them, at the expense of the backblock settlers, who have to wade ankle-deep in mud to their sections, because the new gaol at Bill-Smith-town is not complete without seven busts of Shakespeare over its pillared porticos, tiled baths for the prisoners, and otto-de-rose sweaters for the warders. We do not, for one moment, grudge the necessary expenditure upon public buildings, nor do we dispute that the capital city is in urgent need of a new Tailway station. But the proposal to spend £400,000 upon improving the present accommodation is little short of criminal while a ten-pound note would add to the comfort of a score of children in an out-back school, and a few hundreds would help to open up an area of virgin land that is simply aching for settlement. As a matter of fact, a Government that has realised the righteousness of a graduated land tax ought to realise equally the virtue of a graduated tax upon comfort. The city dwel-

lers should be prepared to accept a certain amount of temporary inconvenience, if that inconvenience is paid for by a lessening of the acute discomforts of the pioneers in outer settlements. The stones of many of the elaborate buildings that are being erected in various centres of the country would serve a much more useful purpose if they were laid flat upon the East road, or any other backblock road, and the sooner the Government realises that; luxuries of this sort should wait their turn, the longer it is likely to remain in office.