The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1809. A BIG LOAN AHEAD.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 143, 19 June 1899, Page 4

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

MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1809. A BIG LOAN AHEAD.

For tho caasa that laclrn assistance, lor Lho wrong that nor iU rcsislanco, For the future in tho distance, Anti tho Gccd teat wo cr.n. do.

The agitation which is arising from end to end of the colony with the object of bringing pressure on the Government- to carry oui railway works augurs the growth of a feeling in favour of another big loan. When Sir .Julius Vogel launched his proposal to borrow ten millions for immigration and public works the country was staggered by the magnitude of the indebtedness which the scheme would lay upon a few hundreds of thousands of people. But New Zealauders since then have grown familiar with big figures. Instead of

ten millions nearly forty millions have been added to the public debt, and the craving for borrowed money is still unsatisfied. Auckland City and I'fovinee. remain isolated both from Tnranaki and WVUir.g-ton, and many important districts like Poverty Hay and the North of Auckland, although sharing in the taxation, are very little better off than if the public credit ptill remained unpledged.

It is not to be supposed that setiler.s who are out oil" from their natural markets will rest contented with the present state of things. They see that there is a determination on the part of various Southern dis-trit-ti-i which have already profited very much from the public works expenditure to secure for themselves further advantages from the same source. Settlers on fertile lands like those in Poverty Bay and the Bay of Plenty, and the residents in wellsettled distriete like the North of Auckland, see that however willing they may be to foregO the benefits of railway communication, the people of Otago, Canterbury and Westland are determined to force the Government to borrow for the formation .of railways over the Southern Alps, and they naturally feel that it is carrying1 self abnegation to the limit of folly to submit quietly to taxation for these profitless works, while lands which will carry a large population remain inaccessible. ; And so there has been revived | throughout the colony a clamour for the construction of railways, which will certainly not cost less than :

ten millions, and are much more likety to cost twenty millions before we have finished them. The Xor'th of Auckland districts have formed a Railway League to press on the construction of that line; Whangarei is demanding an extension to deep water; Gisborne

is asking for a railway to connect it with the llotorua line; then there is the ceaseless pressure from Auckland, Wellington, and Taranaki for the construction of the Central and Stratford railways; railway leagues exist in Mnrlborough, in Nelson, in Westland, Canterbury , and Otago, each championing a scheme the estimated cost of which runs into millions.

The Ministry lAis been twitted with having borrowed heavily although it took office as a non-borrowing Governihent. But Ministries exist only so long as they execute the mandates of the people, and if these leagues voice the real feeling- of the country on this subject the borrowing's of the past nine years will have been a mere trifle compared with the borrowing oi! the next decade. But does the country want railway construction pushed on rapidly at the cost of another big loan? Wo doubt it very much. The lesson of the borrowing boom of the past and the collapse which followed it must have been given in vain if New Zealand colonists wish to repeat the experience. No doubt in a young country borrowing for public works must go on, and

such lines as the , Gisborne-Rotorua and North Auckland railways have a just claim on the colony which cannot be denied. But it is far better that railways shall progress at a moderate rate and keep pace with the advance of settlement than that another scramble for loan money to [ be squandered on political railways | shall arise to poison our public life and undermine our present steady > progress and prosperity by creating a condition of temporary inflation. It j would be well if a clear note on this j I subject could be obtained from the ! country at the approaching- general j elections.