The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1879.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 299, 25 October 1879, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1879.

WHATEVER Government New Zealand may have for the coming year, it is pretty evident that retrenchment in the public expenditure will Lave to be resorted to all round. As things are we in this county have not too much reason to congratulate ourselves. The bridges in the Forty-mile Bush are falling to decay, the roads in and to Whareama are but partially formed and metalled. Alfredton is isolated, and access to it can only be obtained by a wild bush track. If after years of subsidies our necessary roads remain incomplete, what chance is there in the coming years when subsidies will be discontinued} We should not beat all surprised to find Borough and County subsidies suddenly discontinued. It is one evil of our colonial finance that it perpetually runs from one end of the gamut to the other. This year the Government may subsidize local bodies to the extent of 20s to the pound of local rates; next year the 20s may drop down to nothing. Had wo a sound system of finance the fall probably would not be more than from 20s to 15s, but with our neck-or-nothin« colonial financiers stability in Government subsidies cannot be relied upon to the smallest extent, The financial arrangements of the colony sillCO the advent of Sir Julius Vogel as a Colonial Treasurer have been utterly divested ot any degree of permanence, and happy-go-lucky has been the rule of the treasury. At last we are about to face our difficulties, and atone for past recklessness in sackcloth and ashes. Settlers will have to make their own roads for the future out of either rates or loans; and if out of the latter they will have to pay interest and sinking fund out of their own pockets. The sooner settlers in districts like tlio Whaveama the Forty-mile Bush, and Alfredton (lice this position the better. Not that it is a desirable contingency or a fair one, but because it is an inevitable one. The colonial finances must be restored to an equilibrium, income must cover expenditure, and this cannot be done without a sacrifice which will be felt in every country district and in eve'y borough throughout the land.