The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1862.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XVII, Issue 966, 12 February 1862, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1862.

So important are the issues concerned in the recent refusal of the Council to ratify the Kowai coal reserve made by the Superintendent, that we hardly deem it necessary to apologise for again reverting to *he subject. Though the whole question has now been before the public for some time, and ample opportunity has been afforded for weighing such arguments as have been adduced for or against the principle involved in the act, the importance of the subject demands a closer ■erutiny than has yet been accorded it. Tfcw question at issue, divested of the verbose nonsense with which it has been overlaid, is simply this—lf any officer in the employ of Government for that special purpose makes valuable discoveries of coal, copper, or other minerals, ought the Superintendent to have the power of reserving from immediate sale, subject to the future consideration of the Council, the land on which such minerals are discovered; or is it at once to be thrown open to the public, meaning necessarily those few fortunate individuals who are in a position to acquire their information at the public expense? Without at all desiring to prejudge the case, we are perfectly satisfied that the common-sense verdict of the country has been already given almost unanimously in favour of the reservation. We believe there are few who would now attempt to

gainsay the assertion that the Kdwai coal fields would be in a more satisfactory position, as far ns the true interests of the public are concerned, were they still reserved for further scientific exploration, than, as they now stand, in the possession of a private speculator, askingsuch terms from the public as virtually prohibit any immediate benefit being- derived from a discovery, which every one hailed at the.time as a just cause fqr public rejoicing- and congratulation. We do not hesitate to repeat that the opponents of the principle involved in this reserve have been unable to produce in support of their opinions anything- but a crude mass of ill digested nonsense, and we should have been well content to leave the matter where it stands but for the importance of the interests at stake and the amount of public property already sacrificed to the vanity of those, who first committed this indiscretion from a desire to exhibit the strength of their party, and having committed it and themselves, still labour on wearily, striving to prove that their foolishness is the offspring of wisdom. We think we are fairly stating the arguments of those who oppose the propriety of vesting this power in the hands of the Superintendent when we sum them up thus :—lst. That all reserves are inconsistent with the principles of free trade and the more advanced teachings of modern political science. 2nd. That there is no more reason for the reserve of a coal mine than there would be for the reserve of ail the water power, peat mosses, stone quarries, gravel pits, &c, in the country. 3rd. That it is as absurd to reserve such mines now, as it would have been in the founders of the settlement to refuse to sell the town lands of Christchurch because they were sure to increase in value with the lapse of time. 4th. That there is danger to the state or at least to the liberties of the future nation which we are now helping to found, when a fixed revenue derived from the land is vested in the Executive Government. These are the arguments, as far as we have been able to extract them from a mass of extraneous matter which have been advanced in support of the ruinous policy adopted by the Council. On a recent occasion we applied the term " childish absurdity" to these efforts of logical acumen, and consequently drew dawn upon ourselves the anger of the ' Press ' man article which almost exceeds in boastful arrogance, any similar previous efforts of our amiable contemporary. On mature reflection we are convinced that we were wrong in the application of the offensive term, and, in the same spirit which always actuates our talented friend, hasten at once to apologise. We retract the term " childish absurdity," as we are satisfied no child of ordinary ability could possibly have concocted suph utter nonsense.

To revert to the argument ; what, may we ask, in the name of common sense lias the question to do with free trade or political economy at all? Under what head of that intricate and complex science is it to be discussed ? What we have to ascertain is simple enough—the most desirable means to obtain a certain end on which we are all agreed. Experience, aided by a little common sense, are the only guides we desire to assist us in discovering the means. Here are no obscure questions of science to be solved, nor will the use of all the terms to be found in a first catechism of political economy help the matter in the slightest degree. What the public want to find out is simply, how the mineral resources of the Province may most speedily and surely be discovered and put in train to be worked, and they will hardly be satisfied to see these results postponed and their speculations disappointed, even though they are informed by the concentrated talent of the Province, with all/the authority its organ knows so well how to assume, that their disappointment must be borne with patience because it is the natural effect of a policy dictated by the purest principles of political economy. As to the supposed analogy between coal mines and gravel pits or peat bogs we confess ourselves utterly at a loss to see" it. Gravel pits are doubtless valuable things in their way, but.they are neither so rare nor valuable as to make them objects of exceptional consideration or the probable subjects of monopoly. The only case which affords a reasonable analogy to this of the coal field, is the possible discovery of a new navigable river in the Province. Suppose, for the sake, of illustration, that at the settlement of the country, the Heathcote had " in the name of free trade" been sold with its frontage to the highest bidder ; will even the 1 Press ' maintain that the public would have been better served or the river rendered sooner navigable, by being placed in the hands of a private purchaser " acting in his own interests and for the sake of his own pocket" than it has been by reserving it to the Government ? A very casual notice of the next argument will show that in its allusions to town sections our contemporary is peculiarly unfortunate— perhaps more so than in its references "to the great principles of political economy and teachings of free trade." Why, these town

sections are reserves, more effectually so than the coal mine ever could have been ! Surely, in the name of free trade, if our contemporary bo correct, there ought never to have beon town reserves at all, but the whole country should have been thrown open to private enterprise to provide its own towns where and how it listed, the Government confining itself to sending out surveyors to discover, and then publish for the benefit of speculators, the best sites for the purpose m the province. As to these town sections they were sold that they might be used. For what else were they ever reserved ? and for what but a similar purpose was the Kowai coal field reserved till the pleasure of the Council could be ascertained? The last, and certainly by far the most ridiculous cry that has been raised on this question is the danger to the future liberties of the nation—a danger we are called upon to avert by the sacrifice of our prospective mineral wealth! Is it really necessary to argue about this ? Who believes that such danger exists, ever has existed, or is ever likely to exist? If so, on what a mine have we been patiently sitting ever since the first collection of the pastoral revenue. Perhaps we. may be allowed to ask, who has ever said that the Government contemplated owning this coal mine or deriving any revenue from it at.all? Let us suppose a Kowai coal company proposing to the Government to purchase the reserve at £2 an acre, to repay the expenses of the geological survey, but to pay no royalty or revenue to the Government on consideration of laying down a tramway to the mines; where, in such "an arrangement, would have been the danger to the liberties of the people, of which we have heard so much? Some such simple arrangement as this would probably have been made, and would have been perfectly in accordance with the teachings of political economy. It would have been a fair appropriation of a Government discovery, and could only have been deemed dangerous to the liberties of the country by men purblind with party animosity, or those whose distorted vision can see little else but evil in anything that does not originate with themselves.

The public have-long been aware that the 'Press' and its party represent the concentrated honesty of the province, and, as a natural consequence, that all who are not of that limited clique must be more or less dishonest ; they are now to he further enlightened on the hidden virtues of that very select coterie, as it would appear that in addition to all the honesty, forcible claim is also laid to all the talent of the province. We are not at all disposed to dispute our. contemporary's 'right to a monopoly of both these virtues. We belfeve the' Press' to be as clever and talented as it is honest. We should be sorry to doubt the talent of that apostle of free trade, who devoted his energies to lamenting the ruinous consequences which must follow the advent of a second bank in the countrj^ nor should we feel inclined to call in question the taste of that writer who indulges his wit in playfully depicting the agonised feelings of a drowning" man. On the contrary, we consider these eccentricities of genius quite as striking proofs of profound judgment and good taste as the whining cant of the writer who backed out of a most unscrupulously conducted controversy upon the railway question with an allusion to the direct interference of a

higher power."