The Evening Star SATURDAY, MAY 30, 1885.

Evening Star, Issue 6915, 30 May 1885, Page 2

The Evening Star SATURDAY, MAY 30, 1885.

The addresses periodically delivered by the member for Port Chalmers to his constituents have been for some years in the same unvarying strain. The honorable gentleman is the Jeremiah of Provincialism. His bewailments are somewhat plaintive, but decidedly monotonous. It is the same old story that we have heard over and over again during the last decade —the same amazing disregard of facts and figures, the vain assumptions as to what might have been had the Provincial system continued financially possible. Then there is the impracticable theory of a separated Otago selfcontained within its own boundaries, and living on its own resources, having no hand or part in the Colony, but commercially and socially, as well as politically, independent. That wild dream of 18/ o, lingering only in the brain of the visional y who conceived it, may be dismissed without argument. New Zealand may look forward to a nobler destiny than a congerie of petty States, each devoted to selfish local interests, and administered by parochial politicians. It is astonishing that a man of shrewd common sense like Mr Macandkew, who has great experience and knowledge of affairs, should talk the unreason which he does on the subject of New Zealand polity. His practical mind and administrative ability might be of great service to the country if he would but shake himself free from hallucinations, the mani-; festation of which destroys all confidence in his judgment and effectually impairs his usefulness. In respect to his views as to the past, and the doleful deploring of Abolition, we shall say nothing further, but will proceed briefly to comment on certain points ju hie speech which have reference to more practical politics. Mr Macsx drew gives especial prominence to two subjects, which lie treats in u thoroughly characteristic manner the establishment of a State Land Bank, and the putting people on the land. In regard to HiS former, he takes up very much the pwfcte of Sir J™i’K Vogel, and advocates a State flunk, whose functions would be not in any t° interfere with the legitimate business of /?ut to make advances to the cultivators of bne soil at a low rate of interest on the security of their freeholds, “ without the intervention “ of third parties or the verbosity of legal “instruments, with the necessary costs.’ How advances of money on land are to be secured without mortgage deeds in some form or other, he does not evjJain ; but that of course, he would say, as in vespeM to where the nvaijoy is to come from, is a mere matter of detail. IVe quite agree that there is no class of the community .that would not be benefited by “ whatever might£aye the « effect of enlarging the extent of the culti- “ ration of fee soil ” and rendering the agricultural industry iu<*' e profitable tha,n it is. There are, however, yery grave and complicated issues involved in the

tion of a State Bank, and it can by no means be taken for granted that the establishment of such an institution, if practicable, on the principles enunciated, would answer the intended purpose, Considerable difficulties must be foreseen. First, in the absolutely essential financial arrangements —the providing ways and means ; and next, .in defining the line of business to be undertaken, so that the money advanced should lie exclusively devoted to actual impielements of their land by bond Jhh settlers. Mr Maoan’uukw last session put a question to the Treasurer as to the expediency of appointing a Royal Commission to impure and report into the advisability of establishing a Government Land Bank, and as to whether any alteration should be made in the currency. In reply, Sir Julius Vogel, while deprecating any interference with the latter, stated that his inclination was in favor of a Commission for the purpose first indicated, but as there was no information available in the country at present, he thought the better course to pursue would be to send Home to England, and perhaps to India, to obtain all the information possible, and then to decide whether there should be a Commission or whether the Government should take the responsibility of acting on the information themselves. We may probably, therefore, hear something definite during the enduing session ; but our own impression is that the Government will leave the question severely alone. Notwithstanding the melancholy failure of Martin’aßayunderlas own administration, Mr Macaxu.vEW still appears to cherish a belief in the virtue of these hothouse methods of forcing the occupation of the countryHe talks in an airy manner of planting 40,000 families of Highland crofters on “ the “ coast of New Zealand, both North and “ Soutli, which is to a large extent a wilder“ness.” Docs he suppose these canny Northmen will stop in the wilderness, even if they could ever be induced to locate there, when other fields and pastures more attractive in this and oilier colonics are open to them ? Just now what immigrants will not do is to go on rough land in unsettled districts and work out their own destiny. More mischievous is the fallacy which Mr Macaxdbew propounds in declaring that he would have every man in the Colony with a house and a piece of land of Ins own, and that the happiness of the many may lie secured by putting every man othenwise unemployed on ten acres of land, notwithstanding that he may be “penniless, “ unable to handle an axe or a spade, and ‘ < having nothing to subsist on, whilst his first “ crop (I) is growing.” He admits it would be positive cruelty to do so. “ The man “ asks for bread and you give him a stone.” But, says the honorable gentleman, “ where “ there’s a will there’s a way ; and, if a man “ is able and willing to undergo a tithe of “ the hardships which the pioneers of this “ and most other colonies had to face, there “ is sufficient of (he milk of human kindness “ left arnouij ns to assist such a man ” —(How many hundreds of them?)—“m a small “ u-ayf’ To quote a popular opera we may say of this ; “ But ob ! —what precious nonsense !”