UNKNOWN THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 1893.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 92, 20 April 1893, Page 4

UNKNOWN

THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 1893.

For "tha cann that lack*! assistant!., For tha momg that needs resistancß, For the" Mure ia the distance. And tha _ood that ira can do.

The Midland Railway offers a salutary

warning to speculative companies and to log rolling governments. After many manoeuvres between Canterbury politicians and English capitalists, the

scheme to make a railway to eros the Southern Alps in exchange fo some millions of acres of land wa "engineered" through the New Zea,

land Parliament, and about seven

years ago the railway was commenced' In the seven years since the Company obtained the concession they appear to have completed about sixty-one miles along the West Coast, and to have about seventeen miles under construction. This represents the work done by the Company. Towards completing the ambitious and high-sounding scheme of crossing a lofty mountain chain to connect the east and west coasts of the South Island, little or nothing has been done. The Company holds millions of acres of land which it cannot sell and which, of course, it never intended to use. The land is, therefore, locked up. Not that such a lockup very much matters for tbe present, for much of the land is located in the Southern Alps. Some of it consists of forests, some of pastoral country and some of agricultural and mining lands.

Like many other people in this colony, the Company has undertaken an enterprise clearly beyond its power to accomplish. It is grievously short of the necessary capital, and it is making attempt after attempt, and submitting proposal after proposal to induce the Ballance Government to guarantee debentures to a large amount, and in other ways to help the Company out of its difficulties. Hitherto, we are glad to find the Government has firmly refused to take any steps in this direction. Guaranteeing debentures is borrowing in a very bad form. It is not very dissimilar to your guaranteeing a bank overdraft for an impercunious acquaintance, and would end, as such one-sided arrangements usually doend,bylheGovernmenthavingtopay. At this time of day it is hardly necessary to say that under no pretence will the colony tolerate borrowing in any form. We have suffered enough from the borrowing policy to satisfy us for a generation.

If it were possible that there are any amongst us who have not yet fully learnt that he that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing, they have but to look at the condition of our neighbours across the Tasman sea. Scores of thousands of people seeking work and finding none; property fallen, in many instances, to one-sixth of its value a few years ago; immense deficits in the public revenues; building societies, companies of various kinds, and banks closing their doors one after another, and eleven thousand houses said to be empty in Melbourne alone; and now the inevitable taxation, which is always the result of pebiic extravagance and folly, is being imposed. That is a picture black enough, but it is only a faint delineation of the actual consequences of such reckless borrowing as the colonies have indulged in. If such a lesson does not make the colonies resolve to borrow no more, and determine to live by honest work, then stiipes will have been laid on the backs of fools in vain. As already stated, every proposal hitherto made by the Midland Company, under various disguises, means borrowing pure and simple. We commend the Hon. Mr Seddon and the Ministry in whose name he speaks for the firm and resolute attitude they have maintained in every phase of the question. Tbeir plain and paramount duty is to continue to refuse to agree with proposals which can only end in entangling the colony in an enterprise so gigantic that it is utterly beyond the power of the Midland Company to carry through, and which, were the Government beguiled into stepping into the shoes of the Company, would cost them their seats, and would involve ! the colony in an enormous and ruinous I expenditure to complete an enterprise which never was needed, is not now wanted, and which will not be required , for a century to come, if then. I Whilst we regret that the Midland j Company entered into an agreement to carry out an undertaking which from ! the first was clearly far beyond their powers, and whilst we regret the position tbey are in, we can only say that «as they"have made their bed, so they must lie in it." That they will never cross the Southern Alps is certain, end the sooner they realise their position and arrange terms for the abandonment of the Alpine portion of their proposed enterprise, the better for themselves. The ioo.ooo people in Canterbury must learn to do without their railway through the clouds, for the costly toy is beyond their reach. It is true that the European Alps havebeen pierced or crossed by railways, and, in imitation of the trog in the fable, the Canterbury pilI arims resolved to bave a railway across their Alps. But the conditions were ! somewhat different. In Europe there were forty millions of people1 on one side of the mountains, and thirty millions on the other; in Canterbury tLve were 100,000 people on one side of their Alps, and twenty thousand on th* other. Nothing could exceed

the folly displayed in the conception of such an enterprise, except the attempt to carry it into execution.

Parliament will shortly meet, when the Midland Railway papers and the Midland Railway enterprise itself will come up for discussion. The majority of members will certainly endorse the action of the Ministry in steadfastly holding the Midland Company to their bargain. Canterbury members may still want their Alpine railway,much as wilful children cry for the moon, but the general verdict will be that if the railway is to be made, it must be made by the Midland Company in accordance with their original agreement, When the Company discover that the completion of the Alpine portion of the railway is utterly beyond their powers, they will probably propose to complete the lines on the coast, taking land in payment, and ask for terms on which they may be permitted to abandon all the rest of the contract. That seems to us the easiest, and, indeed, the only possible solution of the difficulty.