THE RETROGRESSION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 7737, 17 April 1896, Page 2

THE RETROGRESSION.

JSot only is the colony now a worse place to live in than it was m 1890, from the point of view of employment being scarcer and wages lower, but the same evidence of blight is found in connection with our railways and our \ imports and exports. Take our rail- j ways first. Eleven years ago we had fourteen hundred and seventy-seven miles of railway open. The mileage now is nineteen hundred and three miles. It has cost us, first, a capital sum of over sixteen millions (£16,142,667 ia the exact figure), and I a yearly loss of over a quarter of a million per year for the last eleven years. The following are the official figures :— <5 .1 1335.. ? jh* B6 2 ill% ' 188$ .. 290,598 x 18 0 ISB7 „■„ 340,164 2 7 10 1338 .. 3<?,o2'i 9. 7 1! 1889 .. 318,813 2 2 10 I 1122 :• 269.631 1 15 7 1891 Y. 25M92 1 Iff 2 1892-.. 288,485 1 17 3 1893 .. 260,113 1 13 0 1594 ~ 279,901. 1 15 2 18S5 .. 307,72!? 1 IS 2 We hare also bean going from bad to worse in our trade. While our population has been increasing our exports and imports have been decreasing. Here again are the official statistics :—

£BA o v g< S rt fl ft I Year. «•« IS J "J_ 111 I s-gi £ ■** 1892.. 660,433 9,365,868 16,303,924 1893.. 672,266 8,557,443 15,438,958 1894.. 686,123 9,231,049 16,019,069 1895.. 698,706 8,656,505 14,956,227 But this is not the worst. It io riot exaggerating to say that the country is nearly sick unto death. The unemployed have been numerous all the summer ; what th>y will be during the winter we can only apprehensively surmise. All over the colony, with the possible exception of Wellington (if that is an exception), the value of property has depreciated. Fortunately there has recently been a big rise in wool, estimated to benefit the colony to the extent of nearly a million pounds. This has no doubt saved us from a dreadful catastrophe, but the outlook is not bright, for all that. This steady progress downhill for the last four or five years must have causes. Is it not fair to assume that one of the causes, if not the principal, is the maladministration of the Government, and their repressive and mischievous legislation ?