The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 1888.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2457, 10 April 1888, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

TUESDA Y, APRIL 10, 1888.

Kquiil and rxart jusiicc to all men, Oi' wh.-ilsouvcr state or persuasion, religious or political.

Tin-; jSorth Island Main Trunk Kailway question promises to be one of the moat important features in the proceedings of Parliament after it re-assembles next month. It will, in all probability, be made a battleground between the Auckland and Wellington members. The contention over the merits of the central route, and the diversion to Taranaki by way of the Stratford line has already been taken up again by the Press of the rival provinces, whilst highly coloured descriptions of the country lying at the Southern portion of the central lino have been published by one of the Wellington members, who is one of its advocates. We will not stop to reflect on the value of these accounts from a man who may not only be biassed on the side of his own opinions, but also incompetent to judge or to discriminate between the suitability or unfitness of large areas of virgin country for profitable occupation by the average immigrant. We can quite understand the anxiety of a Wellington clique to carry through the completion of the central route at all hazards, in order to secure to themselves, not only what trade, present and future, may exist or be created in the districts tapped by the line, but also that " unearned increment" Sir George Grey has so often fulminated, against which a few speculators in large acquisitions of land are fondly hoping to reap by the construction of the railway. It is perfectly comprehensible that a mercantile coterie in Auckland should condemn the central route, and, in its clamour for the expenditure of a large sum of public money to place Taranaki in direct railway communication with the northern city, in order to secure what they also consider an important trade. The spectacle here presented to us is that of greed and selfish interests in antagonism to each other, and wilfully callous to the general welfare and critical condition of the colony as a whole. It is not for the Government of New Zealand to be influenced in evil times like these by the grasping spirits of either Wellington or Auckland traders and speculators into increasing the burdens of the country. The cry of the people has been for rigid retrenchment; that is, a complete reversal of the career of extravagance and wicked profligacy. One of the legacies in' the schedule of that wretched past is the North Island Trunk Railway obtained by political intrigue and to keep in place and power a corrupt ministry. It is an utterly unnecessary railway, and a worthless one, whichever route is ultimately decided upon. None, but those personally interested in its construction and benefitted by the expenditure of the money spent upon it- have any other opinion of it. Even the contractors, engineers, and ill I classes of workmen a - lio are employed on it, condemn it as a stupendous stroke of folly and public robbery, though, at the same iiine, they are making their present living out of it. Tho good now obtained from tho carrying out of the works in tho employment of labour is but transient ; the immense evil it will leave behind it looms up in th< near future, which all but the blind and perverse robbnr of his country can clearly distinguish. The lan; interview between a deputation of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Hon. Mr Mitchelson bears the aspect of provincial selfishness on one side, and a truckling to political support on the other. In defiance of all the great kudos claimed by the Government for their policy of retrenchment and large savings, we find them deliberately incurring so large an outlay as ten thousand pounds in surveying the country through which the diversion to Taranaki is proposed to be taken, whilst the outlook of a further loan to carry on this Main Trunk Railway folly is put before us. The real point at issue is carefully ignored, or s'st aside ; but we protest again, that the colony is too seriously imperilled by the state of its finances and the heavv obligations with which it is overtaxed to pursue such an expensive fad as the construction of any such railway, merely to gratify the demands of one or two selfish factions. The common sense of the country as a whole is adverse to the perpetration of furthor extrava-y.-iuced of the kind.

Jt is reprehensible enough that the Main Trunk Line is being continued through a great stretch of country that does not belong to the state or the

people of the colony, hut which, when in course of time it has becou.o iic'ijuiretl by tin; Crown, will ho found in very lar»e proportions unlit for settlement as we nnrlrsrstand settlement to mean. The lino is now in working order as far Te Ivuiti, several miles in the interior of purely native country whore there is not a vestige, of Europoi.ii settlement and no other trade except the very ephemeral one that i.s produced by the existence of the contracts, and will utterly expire on their termination. Europeans cjuld not settle on farms in any part of this country and find it profitable, even if the nature of the land was favourable for occupation by small fanners, which we maintain it is not. If the. farmers of the Waikato districts south of the confiscated boundary cannot make their occupation profitable, and are said to stagger under the excessive railway freights, how can it be shown that settlers placed on virgin soil twonty-fivo. fifty, or a hundred miles further removed from a central markofc and seaport with still hoavier freights (besides other disadvantages) will succeed in doing so ? It is a palpable absurdity, and if the further construction of the lino is to bo prosecuted and the purchaso of tlio lands along the line through the King Cotmtry is to bo continued with the object or idea of getting these lands occupied by British families under some special settlement scheme, then we say emphatically, that it would be a gross wrong to in any way induce such occupation under the disabilities at present bearing upon settlers situated at any considerable distance from the seaboard. In what way can these great and apparently insurmountable obstacles to the profitable occupation of the soil be removed 1 Mr Mitehe.lson in his reply to the deputation who waited on him in reference to the grain rates from Waikato, supplied the answer when he said " That the whole question resolved itself into whether the railways were to be used as a means of raising revenue, or to create and foster the settlement of the country.

When the country is prepared to adopt the original intention of the promoters of the Public Works Policy of 1870, "that the railways should be constructed with a vi w to the settlement of the lands of the colony," we shall all be justified iu urging the prosecution of railway extension, and shall feel no hesitation in advocating any sensible scheme for the settlement of our unoccupied lands.