The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, The Morning News, and The Echo. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1879.

Auckland Star, Volume X, Issue 3011, 11 December 1879, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, The Morning News, and The Echo.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1879.

For the erase thnt lacks assistance, For the wrong tlui needs resistance. For the future in the distance, And the cood that we can do.

Wk have procured by telegraph a digest of the appropriations made undoc the Public Works Budget, delivered by Mr Oliver in the House of Keprcsentatives on Tuesday night, in order to arrive at a just judgment upon (he Govommsnt proposals. The proposed expenditure in the sovcral districts of the colony is given below : — MOUTH ISLAND. if H IsS 111 «1 B Auckland— Ka\vakawa(length,Binileß2B clinic ato deep water) .. *10,50U £36,100 Koiuo(Bmil«atodO4p water) 10,000 35,00j Kuipara-Walknto (fioiu Huleitsvllle to To Awninutu, 111 miles 5 chains) .. .. 202,000 71,000 Waikato-Thamts (Hamilton station to nenr Hmmiton Weat, 1 milu 1 chain) .. 5,000 1,100 Waikato-Thames (Hamilton f> To Arolm, 31 mill*) .. 75,000 100,000 Waikato-Thames (To Aroha to Thames, 30 miles) .. 30,000 57.000 Wuikato-Taranuki (To Awamutu to Fuuiu liircr, 2 miles 40 chains) .. ~ 5,000 7,000 Total for Auokland _ £373,100 £337,500 Wellington— Welliuirton toOpakc,7omUcs 19 chains £163,000 £72,000 Wellington to Johnsonville, G miles 10 chains ~ .. 10,000 50,000 Jo.aisonvillo to Foxton, 01 miles ..' 15.000 333,000 Bunnythorpo to Woodville, 11 miles 67 chains .. .. — 150,000 Foxton to Carlylo, 147 miles 30oliain3 118,000 160,000 Total for Wellington .. £366,000 £773,000 TaranakiCarlyloto Waiters, G3 miles 50chain3 £85,000 £151,000 Napier to Tahoraia (S3 mileß) £05,000 £91,000 No comment of ours is required to demonstrate the unfairness of these appropriations. The votes taken for Auckland simply provide for the completion of the lines vow under construction and nearly finished from Auckland to Hclonsville, and from Ohaupo to Te Awamutu, for the Thames Valley railway, and the two coal lines. J\o provision whatever is made for the Cambridge branch line ou which the settlers are prepared to guarantee seven per cent. That this line lias not been undertaken is the more extraordinary from the fact that the settlers sent a deputation t) Wellington less than a month ago to to present the justiceof their claim. The North Auckland railway is also wholly neglected. If the linancial requirements of the colony had rendered it impossible to undertake these important and necessary workp, their omission would have appeared in a loss unfavorable light, but when wo nud that appropriations taken for other parts of tlm colony arc continued on an uuditniuished scale of extravagance it is our duly to most earnestly protest, and call upon our mombora to resist step by stop the public works estimates, unlrss placed upon a fairer footing. The Provincial District of Auckland comprises considerably more than half of the North Island. Its area is 17,000,000 acres as compared with 12,340,000 acres in Hawkes Bay, Taranaki, aud Wellington, yet we find the appropriations bear these relative proportions :— Southern part, of Auckland, North Island, Appropriation for current year .. £373,1C0 £516,000 Balance for future appropriation .. £337,800 £1015,000 Totalß .. £710,000 £1,531,000 To these figures must bo added the four or iivo hundred thousand pounds of which Auckland has already been defrauded. The appropriations for Wellington aro simply scandalous. They contomplato the continuation in sovcral sections of two main trunk railways running parallel up the Bast and West Coasts—-one 220 miles from Wellington to Napier, penetrating tho country on that route and tapping the trade for the port Wellington—the other, a line 283 miles long from Wellington city to Now Plymouth to carry tho whole Taranaki trade down upon the same central focus. Tho Wellington-West Coast railway, which might he obviated by connecting tho Foxton line with the Napier trunk lino by means of a fourtecii-milo section from Woodville <o Bunnythorpc, ia an unwarrantable undertaking, and should not he commenced by the Government, The total mileage authorised in Auckland, including the coal railways, amounts to only 224 mile?. Tho settlers in this part of tho colony are therefore being ground down with taxation upon everything they possess to aggrandise Wellington, while isolating Auckland and sinking it to the position of an insignificant city with no sustaining root in the country. That thia will ever be remedied while the Province is dragged at the chariot wheels of the rest of the colony we may well despair, unless the people absolutely refuse to submit to grinding taxation for purposes so grossly unjust. The works proposals of the Government as between the North and South Islands are as follow :—Total estimated length of railways in the South Island 1642 miles 8 chains; estimated length of the portions affected by the Wovemment proposals, 1226 mile 340 chains; estimated expenditure on the unconstnicted works, £3,269,000; expenditure during tho financial year ending 12th June, 1880, £1,449,600 ; balance for future appropriation, £1,810,400. The account therefore between tho Worth and South Islands stands thus : Hco *•"■'£! |a s& 'G oj „, p. OjU ggi Oh 0 O # Siuth Island .. .. .. £1,419,600 £1,519,400 North Island- .. .. 889,100 1,352.900 The length of railway when these works are completed will he :— South Island 1,612 North Island .. .. ... 851 Tho peoplo of Auckland should at once initiate a movement with the object of protesting against tho unfairness of tho proposed and pa^t expenditure of loans, and to aid the Cambridge and Northern settlers in obtaining the railway communication which they have a just right to demand.