The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. THURSDAY, SEPT. 5, 1889.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2676, 5 September 1889, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. THURSDAY, SEPT. 5, 1889.

« As we said before it is a matter for congratulation to see the warm and energetic manner in which men of iuHuaneoin Auckland are moving in the cause of railway reform. Waikato ought to accept the formation of the Railway Reform League in the city as an omen of good. Hitherto this district has played a lone hand in advocating a more liberal policy in connection with our railway system, and in this it was not accorded the support of the city which it should have received. A wish was expressed at the meeting of the Auckland League on Tuesday that their movement would be supported by the country. In point of fact it is Auckland city which is now tardily coming forward to the support of the country. A Railway Reform League lias existed in Hamilton for some years, and it may be said to have fallen into quieseucc only through the want of that actual and moral support we have referred to. It remains for the Auckland League to place itself in communication with I he Waikato one and formulate joint action between them. The Waikato League would, probably, lose no time in coining again to life and its iirst step should he to convene a public meeting to decide on a new plan of campaign, reconstruct its executive, and enter upon an alliance with the Auckland League. The whole burthen of the discussion at the meeting in Auckland was the r-ettlement oi the country, which is entirely dis-

couraged by the system of differential charges and the railway pol icy general ly. One of fclie speakers went to the heart of the question when lie declared that " railway revenue was a question of population, and if they could get people to go out on the land the railway receipts would lie increased and taxation lessened," Another speaker also asserted that " the land would never be settled by the present rail way system, and they would never have prosperity in Auckland until it was settled.'' The railways of the colony wore undertaken on the principle that they would prove the most powerful factor in stimulating the settlement of our back country by a continuous flow of fresh population, which they would help to attract to our shores. The railway policy, with its burdensome tariffs, on the contrary, operated to the detriment of settlament, and has finally destroyed it. We know that the progress of the Waikato has not been advanced by the agency of its railways; the reverse is the fact, as our townships have decayed, our farmers are struggling against a hard fate and our manhood has been leaving us for other more favoured fields, The population so absolutely needed by the colony, to lighten the weight of heavy taxation on the shoulders of tax-paying inhabitants by widening its incidence, does not come to us. The task imposed upon those who are left to bear the heat and burden of the day is so oppressive that it is impossible for the sunshine of prosperity to reach them. Without a steady influx of new population the colony will never recover elasticity, and without an extremely generous and statesmanlike policy in connection with our State railways being pursued, in order to induce people to spread them over the face of the land and occupy it, population will become more and more congested in a few large centres. Crime, poverty and pauperism will increase and be added to our already terrible responsibilities, to drain still more the industry of the country's chief wealth - producers, the tillers of the soil.