The Wairarapa Daily. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1884. NORTH AND SOUTH.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1601, 5 February 1884, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1884. NORTH AND SOUTH.

——9 The Cliristcliuvcli Telegraph takes the Wellington Post to task for the virtuous indignation which it has expressed, because certain southern journals,and; southern politicians put forth theory that all borrowing should cease forthwith. The Telegraph argues ■, that even if the South Island has got tho best of the railway spoil the North Island formerly'fattened on. the native difficulty attbe expense of the South. According to the Post the superior development of the Middle Island is • due to its larger share of public .works construction, but according to the ■ Telegraph it is due to the peculiar circumstances of the Middle Island. What the peculiar circumstances of the 1 Middle Island have been our southern contemporary does not indicate, but if there is one fact or more than another which has helped the South to go ahead of the North it was undoubtedly thefinancial compact of 1856. At that period the Nativ6 title was extinguished almost entirely in the Middle Island, but in the North Island rt was only , extinguished to a small extent, tho cost of extinguishing it being then considered a colonial liability. The land [ revenue at that time was regarded equally with the customs as colonial revenue The financial compact of 1856 altered this state of things. A small loan was raised, and, in. the 1 scramble for money, the Middle Island f got the best of the bargain. It agreed 8 to pay interest and sinking fund on • £200,000 required to satisfy the claims j- of the New Zealand Land.Company on t the. colony,, provided that waste lands s became Provincial property,, The . North Island got' another, £200,000 for the extinction- of Native Land i title, the interest-on it being charged - against its land fund.. Theresulfc'was,. '• that the Provincial Districts in the Middle .'lsland '-became possessed; ■ of . vast areas of unencumbered, waste lands which they were ableto

settle with marvellous celerity. The waste lands of the North Island were oil the contrary encumbored with native titles and native disturbances, and it was impossible forthe : North Island to compete, with the-South in the work of settlement, Had there been no millions borrowed for public works in New Zealand, we believe the South would have outstripped the North after securing its land fund as local revenue. We do not desire to see any more financial compacts made in Now Zealand, for it is a certainty that if a bargain be'made between the North and" Middle Islands over railways, tho latter will get the best, of it as it did in the financial compact of 1856. If the railway question—tho continuation of our borrowing policycan bo settled in the interests of the colony as a whole, we ought to be satisfied. The Middle Island was ripe for settlement and ripe for public works prior to the North Island. It is absurd to'grudge it the development for which it was fitted. The turn of the North Island will come—is now coming—when without injury to the colony as a whole, it can take some of the strides which have already been taken by the Middle Island,