WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1888.

Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 215, 12 September 1888, Page 4

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1888.

We hope Mr Withy is not qualifying himself for the r6le of the Jeremiah of New Zealand. His speech was .simply 'a!; prolonged lamentation over the past wrong-doing of the colonists—the'laches of their rulers, the want of foresight and frankness on the par 1 jOf their representatives and the press. Indeed, fa stranger in the hall might readily have been led to suppose, that before the; member for Newton came into the political arena aridlopked into the public accounts no one was aware how; much the: country owed, how much tlte Government had spent. "If past- members knew these things,"lexclaimed the hoo. member, 'f why had they not told them in the past ?" 'We- knew that the ego was very strongly pronounced in Mr Withy, so strongly as to make him very confident in. his opinions; but really, after all that has: been written and spoken about, reckless borrowing and : spending,' about: political railways, district railway jobbery, paying for services/ out of loan; which ought to be paid out of revenue,. and so forth, one hardly knows how to treat 'seriously the claims of a gentleman, comparatively new as a settler and still newer as a public man, who lays claim to the position of a discoverer of these things. There are other things, however, quite as true, which Mr- Withy does not seem to have discovered, but which are impressed upon',the'minds of men who remember the time when a handful of settlers, environed by a numerous and hostile aboriginal population, were struggling; to establish an Anglo - community upon; these shores. They see great cities built; roads and railways permeating : the country in every direction^ mines opened -up, millions of acres of land that were lying waste brought under cultivation—so many millions that, if we include the sown grasses, the land ploughed and brought under cultivation^ exceeds the cultivated- area of New South Wales and Victoria put together, And although /we fully agree that the colony has borrowed too lavishly and spent too : freely, think that if Mr Withy had searched the public accounts a little more carefully he would have discovered something more in the shape of assets for tl^ie £, 36,ooo,ooo; of BebtJ tHkn one half of the liability; Railways alone represent an expenditure of' oyei? and it was clearly shdwn by the*? Minister of Public Works ill his recent statement that,'notwithstanding the charges O"extravagance in public works levelled against past administrations, it would have Cost twenty-two millions to construct the same length -of line if" our railways had cost;as much per mile as the railways in New South Wales and Victoria have done. Then with regard to the 3^4 millions spent on roads, upon which Mr VVithy places very little value as an asset, is it.to be supposed that these works have not been reproductive to the colony in extending settlement and enhancing the value of the Crown estate; 6r that the two millions .Spent on .immigration have not ; been reproductive ; through the if 4,000 people introduced into the colony who are now sharing its burdens .and. contributing by. their'; labour to its wealth ? Similarly,, we might deal with the expenditure on public buildings. At this moment a large expenditure of that character is going on in the erection of a Customhouse at Auckland, and fpr what ? To save the ■Government a week | rental by utilising its own endowments. This expenditure is clearly reproductive, although not represented byrevenue paid into the public treasury.

In selecting, the fall" of interest as a sign of depression,' Mr Withy was j peculiarly unfortunate. In Melbourne, j the fall has been much greater ,jthan here, and because of the cheapness of money business isbooming.: "There: are already signs of a hardening of the money market in Australia through the absorption of capital- in ventures of: every; description, and especially iii a fictitious land . vahie, and a month or two will probably see the banks here offering a higher rate for deposits in order to prevent the drawing off of capital from' Nevr Zealand' to supply the Australian demand.: . | The: revenue frdrti railways now represents; about thirty per cent, oi; the gross revenue of' the. colony, and the revenue from telegraphs, post-offices, Crown lands and other sources another twenty per cent. Taxation thus furnishes ; little more than,fifty.-per cent, of: the total public revenue, and it is. lighter.per head than in Queensland, yet Queensland is prosperous. We have opened up enoughlandtosettle treble the population that is now located upon if, arid if population and settlement were only pushed' on, the debt which looks so formidable would be of no consequence at all. But if it be true that the dreadful I picture of. roisgoyernnient which Mr j Withy painted lasf night correctly reI presents the position of affairs in New i Zealand, it is useless to spend time in idlelameritaiionsv What is' the remedy? Is it' supposed. that,the imposition; of heavier and :a ; . simultaneous reduction ia the wages of the working classes jg to make everybody' happy snd prosperous? Of are wq to virujsi for. '■&" t9 MftJ^F :|msoß, viEt^er, whose adnaipi^ratipn #• the past more loans have been raised

and more debt heaped on the country.:'- than under any other public man; who still sees no finality to borrowing; and whose Government this session took votes for large sums of rnone? to be spent on those roads, buildings,?;non-paying railways, and other non-productive works; which Mr Withy, tells us have ruined the country. If these are not the sheet anchors upon .which the:member for Newton: would haye the colonists rely, we can find no other in his address.

Something like a personal grievance against this journal seems to have been implied in one part of Mr Withy's address last night, based upon the nonpublication of a full report of his speech from "Hansard" slips supplied by him tothe piess reporters at Wellington. It may simply. be remarked that Mr Withy's speeches in the House were as fully.. reported as those of any other member, and that it is absolutely impossible, unless we resolved to turn the paper for the time into a daily edition or. " Hansard^' to republish members' speeches verbatim, Other members besides Mr Withy are in the habit of sending carefully-cor-rected slips of their speeches—we receive them not merely from Auckland members, but from members in all parts pf the colony. * Our report of Mr Withy's speech was a fair representation of what he said, and his address last night does not modify it except in one respect, namely, that the retrenchment of ,^IOO,OOO was meant to be distributed over the;: entire: public vice. Now, will Mr Withy be good enough to tell us - whether that view of the proposal was clearly set out in the slips which he first received from the chief of " Hansard s'aff.; Unless we are misinformed, it was not, but was made the subject of an interpolation, the original report making it: appear that the ;£i 00,000 reduction was to be applied mainly, if not exclusively, to the salaries uhder '■£ 15 0 aryear, the Goyerrimerit having already, during the recessj /made reductions on salaries above that amount. ><' •

We have no quarrel at all with the member for Newton; on the contrary" we like his; outspoken way of discussing ( questions which aire usually considered " ticklish "from a politician's standpoint. With much that he says we heartily concur, but from much more jnje r;feel^ bouhd r■■\to1;-';;'4i.ssent../'-^'.-He/.i;.is imbued 'with: English ideas, and they may not be without their value as applied to /colonial institutions) but they will thrive much better, in coloniairsoi! when they have become more adapted to the conditions.