Evening Post. TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 1914. PROVINCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 82, 7 April 1914, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 1914. PROVINCIAL DEVELOPMENT

In developing the sparsely settled districts of the Wellington Province there is a new kingdom to be opened up. A kingdom so rich in native wealth, and yet so neglected both as regards access and utilisation, that it recalls the departing lament attributed to Rhodes—"So little done, so much to <lo."' Hero in Now Zealand wo are not so placed as to think, as Rhodes thought, in continental distances. Our ideal is qualitative rather than quantitative, and our aim is to make the utmost iite of country that is almost all occupied, but which is scaicely anywhere adequately occupied. That in why intensive cultivation ie vital to the progress of pur primary producing

industries, and intensive cultivation connotes access and closer settlement. Unfortunately, the large schemes of transport and development necessary to the realisation of our neglected provincial assets, such as the isolated East Coast, have fallen between two stools. The local bodies and the chambers of commerce, whose principal concern these provincial arteries should be, are not big enough, nor united enough ; and the central Government has other concerns, and in the race for its favours the district ¦whose members of Parliament co-operate best has a big start. The purpose of the circular sent out by the Wellington Chamber of Commerce is to awake County and Borough Councils and local chambers out of their parochial slumbe.s, and to give them some measure of unity in the promotion of objects of provincial importance, which now are the business of nobody in particular. A conference of delegates might create a standing committee to accomplish two things : (1) To focus the aims and resources and executive power of the constituent bodies ; (2) to exert pressure on the central Government and, by united effort, to eliminate local difficulties (such as route disputes) that now give Ministers excuses for shelving big public works. New Zealand at present has no main roads policy. Some local bodies would like to throw all main roads on to the Government Others aa'e desirous of maintaining control, and keeping the loads more or less in good order — generally less. Some think that all transport problems will be solved by the motor. Others wish to tax motor traffic. While there is a movement to push main roads on to the Government, the latter, conversely, is prepared to surrender railwaymaking powers in certain circumstances to local bodies, because the national finances are overburdened. No principle is discernible in the roads policy of New Zealand unless it be the bad principle of using public works money as Governmental bribes. As transport is the first consideration, the conference proposed by the Chamber of Commerce will prove a real benefit if it brings scattered county and other bodies into co-operation and secures a co-ordination of policy and effort. Some of the work to b© done is pioneering, and some is improvement. While the first need of an out-back settler is a road, his second is the improvement of railway access by the avoidance of such obstacles as the Rimutaka incline, which is a daily tax on the whole Wairarapa and Wellington districts. Nature, when she barricaded one of this city's outlets with the Rimutaka ranges, and the other with the Paekakariki hill, evidently pi'esumed that the people of Wellington and the Wairarapa and the Manawatu would have sufficient intelligence to combine to defeat these difficulties. Unfortunately, the presumption has hitherto proved too optimistic. If it is to be realised, a conference such as that proposed by the Wellington Chamber of Commerce seems to be the best preliminary step. Over a year ago, when Wairarapa bodies had been stirred up to some enthusiasm concerning the East Coast railway, The Post suggested that they concentrate on securing the appointment, by the Minister for Public Works, of a small independent expert commission to fix the route, thus settling local differences,, and leaving the Government no excuse for procrastination on the plea of other people's failings. But the local bodies had not sufficient cohesive power to accomplish even that. Singly, they are quite ineffective. How much farther forward is the East Coast railway to-day than it was a year ago?