The Herald. Alexandra, Thursday, March. 5, 1903. THE OTAGO CENTRAL AND ITS ENEMIES

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 356, 5 March 1903, Page 4

The Herald. Alexandra, Thursday, March. 5, 1903. THE OTAGO CENTRAL AND ITS ENEMIES

The selfish grab-all policy adopted in the past by the northern representatives in Parliament—especially the Auckland members —in regaid to colonial public works and railway construction, is notorious ; and their actions, both in and out of Parliament, cannot but lead one to believe that they are utterly incapable of detecting any virtue in anything on earth beyond their own limited horizon. They are quite convinced that their own little corner of the Colony is the hub of the universe, and that it is only right, and quite in accordance with the eternal fitness of things, that the interests of the South Island should be ignored, and that the whole resources of the Colony should be concentrated in one grand effort to gridiron the lava beds and the desolate wastes of the far north with roads and railways. In their persistent efforts to secure an undue propor tion of public money for railway construction, the nothern members base their claims not so much on the virtue of the resources of their own territory as on the alleged lack of virtue in other portions of the Colony, which likewise demands the advantages that railway communication affords; and. in carrying out this beautiful policy of trying to win their case by abusing the other side, they certainly cannot be credited with being strictly scrupulous in their methods. Their pet aversion seems to be the Otago Central Railway—no doubt, for the reason that it is the most important public work of the kind in the South —and they spare no pains in their efforts to belittle the claims of Central Otago for railway communication, and no statement that the most distorted imagination can supply is too ridiculous for the Auckland " grab-alls " to advance in their efforts to convince Parliament that the public money available for the prosecution of this line should be diverted to the North. A fair sample of these northern champions is Mr Geo. Fowlds, the member for Grey Lynn, who sat in the last Parliament as one of the Auckland < ity representatives. Mr Fowlds recently appointed himself a flying commissioner to visit Central Otago. and | " inspect" the country through which the railway passes and that through which it is proposed to carry the line, his object presumably being to add to his anti-Otago Central aguments any little force or weight that a " personal inspection " might carry in the House of Representatives, where but comparatively few of the members have any personal knowledge of the resourcos of the country which is to be tapped by the railway. In another column will be found a report of the statements made to an " Evening. Star " representative by Mr Fowlds, conveying his opinions regarding the country traversed and to be opened up by the Otago Central railway; A perusal of this report Ot Mice reveals the fact either ttat Mi'

Fowlds' faculty of observation is in a sadly undeveloped state, or that, like Nelson at Copenhagen, he deliberately turned on a blind eye. It is an old saying and a true one that there are none so blind as those who will not see, and do not want to sec. The animus of the member for Grey Lynn is, indeed, only too apparent, and his absurdly reckless statements will therefore carry but little weight in the minds of men . gifted with an ordinary amount of common j sense. We have not at present sufficient available space to deal fully with Mr Fowlds' recorded opinions—our readers will themselves be able to appraise them at their true value—but we will refer briefly to one or two points, as indicating the extremely distorted view taken by Mr Fowlds of the conliguratfon and agricultural possibilities of the country through which he hurriedly passed. After referring to the iniquity of bringing the railway through the Taieri gorge, instead of from Palmerston, Mr Fowlds goes on to say that " the country " beyond the gorge, right up to Ida Valley, "with the exception of a little valley " through which the train runs, was mostly " rugged hills with tussock growing in be- " twccn the rocks." The portion of country which Mr Fowlds mistook for a little valley is no doubt that known as the Maniototo Plains; and it is sufficient to say that when a man, who sets himself up as an authority, alludes to the immense area of level country comprised in those plains as a '* small valley," his subsequent reflections can only excite feelings of ridicule and scorn. The Hawea Plains did not impress Mr Fowlds very favourably. He is of course ignorant of the fact that whilst there he was gazing upon what is recognised by more competent authorities than himself to be the best wheat-growing land in the Colony; and, moreover, the cereals are brought to maturity without the aid of manures and | fertilising agents, which are luxuries denied to farmers in that region owing to their I remoteness from the railway and the conse- ' quent great expense entailed in cartage.

When, by the approach of the railway, the agriculturists of the interior have the same advantages for procuring fertilising agents as their more favored friends nearer the seaboard, it may be expected that the productiveness of the soil will be very considerably enhanced. Then, again, by his reference to the fruit-growing capacities of Hawea, Mr Fowlds' amazing ignorance is again evident He evidently thought he . was there in the centre of the fruit-growing area for which Central Otago is famous, but we have yet to learn that Hawea lays any special claim to its capabilities in the direction of fruit-growing If, however, Mr Fowlds had taken the trouble to inspect one or two of the gardens in the neighborhood of Alexandra, during his stay here, he would have seen crops of stone and other fruits that could not be excelled even in that wonderful region from which he himself hails; and if his remarks in this connection are intended to apply to this district—well, we prefer to accept the opinions of such experts as Mr Blackmore and Signor Bragato, who have long since expressed their convictions that the fruitgrowing capabilities of Central Otago—notably in the Alexandra, Clyde, and Teviot districts—arc second to no other district in the Colony. Mr Fowlds' extreme anxiety to make himself fully acquainted with the resources of Central Otago may be gauged from the fact that his presence in Alexandra was, so far as we can ascertain, quite unknown to any of the citizens, and his stay here must have been confined to the hours between G p.m, of one day and 4 a.m. of the following morning. But this was no doubt quite sufficient for the purposes of the hon. member's mission. Then as to his opinions about the area of agricultural land on this side of the railway, Mr Fowlds, from his perch on the top of the coach, evidently failed, for example, to note the settlement and the agricultural capabilities of the Earnscleugh Flat; he was probably asleep when the coach was passsing through plenty of country suitable for settlement between Alexandra and Gphir; he did not observe the fertile farms that covered the landscape from Tiger Hill away towards Matakanui and St Bathans, as far as the eye could reach; and he utterly failed to notice the immense area under profitable cultivation in Ida Valley • all of which must be tapped by the railway. But, whilst we do not wish to pursue Mr Fowlds' " opinions " further, his tale is adorned with a moral that must be apparent to those who desire to see the Otago Central Railway pushed on to its projected terminus. Signs are not wanting to indicate that a combined effort is about to be made by members, interested in railways in the northern part of the Colony, to oppose the expenditure of further money on the Otago Central, and it behoves the people interested in this line, and their parliamentary representatives, to bring all the power they can command to meet the attack. We note that some of the Canterbury members also propose to visit Central Otago, and we hope that the various branches of the Railway League will take such steps as will allow these gentlemen to make themselves fully acquainted with the resources of the interior, and the need that exists for railway cemmunication. so that they may not depart in the same state, of profound ignorance as did Mr Fowlds.