The Hastings Standard Published Daily WEDNESDAY, DEC. 1, 1897. AN OUTSIDE CRITICISM.

Hastings Standard, Issue 490, 1 December 1897, Page 2

The Hastings Standard Published Daily

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 1, 1897. AN OUTSIDE CRITICISM.

For the cause that lacks assistance,' For the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can da*

It is wholesome now and again to have before us the views of outside critics, not thai these critics can always take an impartial and just measure of our work. Of such outside critics the most important are those British journals that deal with our public finance. We find that the Financial News of the 14th ult. deals in a comprehensive way with Mr Seddon's Budget a brief summary of which was cabled Home through Reuters' agency. The article is somewhat lengthy, and we quote only a portion of it. It says " The proposed outlay on public works is open to no criticism. Two thirds of the £300,000 is to be used to add to the rolling-stock of the Government railways. As in the last financial year thaso lines showed an increase in net earnings of £65,000, and returned £3 3s lOd on cost of construction it is clear that expenditure on additional working stock can hardly be misplaced, A caustic correspondent recently wrote to us suggesting that if many railways were acquired by New Zealand on the same terms as the Midland Railway of the colony there could be no difficulty in making profits. The point was a fair one, and we are sorry to see that his visit to London has not brought Mr Seddon to a keener sense of obligation towards the security holders of the New Zealand Midland Railway. The passage in the telegraphic summary of his Budget referring to this matter is not very clear. It says the Premier declared that those interested in the Midland Railway irnjst either submit to proposals for completing the work or throw themselves by petition upon the generosity of the people of the colony. The company has never refused to entertain fair proposals for the completion of the line ; its complaint is that after placing insuperable obstacles in the way of completion, the Government took possession, on the pretence that the contract with the colony had not been fulfilled. Let New Zealand replace the company in possession of the property, let the Ministry atone for all the curious pranks played with the land grants, and give the company reasonable facilities and the contract be

fulfilled. But it is absurd to expect holders of New Zealand Midland securities to go to Wellington with bated breath and whispering humbleness to petition for generous treatment. They don't want generosity ; common honesty will suffice. If Mr Seddon will look up a few of his early utterances on /he subject he will have no difficulty in discovering what should be done to remove the stigma of discredit and dishonesty from New Zealand." "Much of the Financial Statement was devoted to industrial and commercial aflairs. Among other propositions is one for the provision of a bonus to encourage beet sugar making ; so that Queensland, Mauritius, British Guiana, and the West Indies may find a British colony entering the lists against them with bountified beet sugar. Here surely is a fresh argument for speedy action to offset the effect of bounties on sugar coming to the United Kingdom. To take steps in this direction after one of outown colonies joined the ranks of the bounty-givers would be much less easy and agreeable than it is now. The cultivation of the rhea fibre in New Zealand gives rise to no such misgivings. The Colony is helping in the provision of cold storage for frozen meat and butter in London, and is watching every opportunity for fostering the export trade to Europe and even to Asia, by encouraging direct Hues of steamers to reduce freights. New Zealand is prepared tc follow the lead of Canada in giving preferential treatment to goods from the United Kingdom, if the Customs revenue permit and if colonial industries are not prejudiced. This is somewhat halfhearted; but we suppose each colony must do the best for itself. Mr Seddon's participations in the jubilee festivities does not seem to have inspired him with any of the breadth of sentiment wbich makes Sir Wilfred Laurier's speeches so refreshing ; but probably the Premier of New Zealand could not enter with any real /.est into the celebrations ; for he must have felt all the time that he was being entertained bypeople who knew that his Government had diddled British investors. The consciousness that his administration is discredited here on account of the Midland Railway scandal, and that the colony occupies a place in that inih'.r I'.rpHn/titurius, the report of the Council of Foreign Bond holders, in connection with the New Plymouth Harbor, may have rankled in Mr Heddon's mind all the time he was in England, but the fault is his own, and the graceful way in which all these causes of complaint were ignored while he was a national guest might have disposed him to make some more adequate response than to propose submission or petition to the generosity of the colony as the only alternative for those interested in the New Zealand Midland Railway."