NORTH V. SOUTH.

Evening Star, Issue 13104, 10 November 1908, Page 7

NORTH V. SOUTH.

THE SAME OLD CRY. [Special to the Stab.] ! AUCKLAND, November 10. The ’Herald,’ in rcferring’to Sir Joseph nard’s speech, says: Sir Joseph Ward can hardly be considered to have dealt effectively with the great public questions of the day in tho speech delivered by him in Auckland on Saturday night; Figures undoubtedly have their use and statistics their place, -but the incomprehensible and irrelevant masses of figures -.and statistics from \ car Books, departmental reports, parliamentary papers, and official gazettes lattic’d off to the audience at the exjiress rate of 200 words per miiiute—and for many minutes at a time—could only bewilder Urn audience, and can do little more than mystify these who read them iu print. Me must assume that the Prime Minister considered them to have a bearing upon tho jiolitical situation, for. wo can hardly suppose that he intended to hypnotise, his auditors with a numerical narration, the greater part of which was as monotonous and as apparently inapplicable as the rcjietition of the multiplication table, while the relevant items sandwiched among the otlicis wore far from being above criticism, cor cxarnjdc. Sir Josejih Ward undertook to demonstrate to us that tho North had received much greater expenditure than the Scuth in tho matter of railways, and by taking a term of ton years, by adding (he Manavvatn purchase money not yet paid, by casually including duplication work, and by carefully excluding “additions to open lines.” ho succeeded in making a balance in favor of the North. Tho corrected figures are tho same us Sir Joseph Ward’s, with the £915,000 which is to be paid for the Mauawatu line omitted. Wo omit it because the (Mauawatu lino was not 'constructed in the ten yeans under consideration, because its acquisition by the Government decs not add a single chain to the railway facilities of the North Island, because the £915,000 does not even, figure in. the jmblic bookkeeping for the period in (|ucstion, and because it was only dragged in by the Prime (Minister to make an ajiparont balance in favor of the North, when the actual expenditure of money in Hie construction of new lines, ns in The “additions to open lines.” has bcrii absolutely apd beyond question in favor, of .the always favored Smith. So much for figiTrcs! How can anybody put confidence in bfficial tables and Government statements which will not bear invrati'.-atiou and dissection. If .our local mcnibcis were as stubbornly loyal to our legitimate local requirements as' most of -the Southern members arc to Hie exaggerated■ demands of their districts, Hho licrrowiiig of the country would probably remain much the same, but the-form of its spending would be very different.