The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23. 1887.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 8125, 23 March 1887, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23. 1887.

The value of one of the principal arguments for encouraging private enterprise {to take up large Colonial public works like the Midland Railway, has just been strikingly demonstrated by the very practical suggestion of Mr Avigdor. When the question was under discussion, it was objected to large Companies that they would monopolise the public lands to their own enrichment and the impoverishment of the Colony ; to which it was, on the other hand, urged that the interest of the Company in the land was the best guarantee that the Company would use its best endeavours to extend the knowledge of the country and push the sale of its products. For our own part we never lost an opportunity of pointing out that to grant concessions of mineral and forest lands to a powerful and wealthy Company, having a position in the London money market, would at once enlist the active support of a large number of most useful friends. The successful floating of such a Company as the Midland would, we often contended, make the development of the public resources then a subject on which it was everybody’s privilege to dilate and nobody’s privilege to act, the definite special business of a number of very powerful and influential people. Hardly has the Midland Railway been taken in hand, scarcely have the representatives of the Company been once up and down the proposed route of the railway, when the argument has received in Mr Avigdor’s proposal a most valuable practical corroboration.

Mr Avigdor’s suggestion comes as a sort of offshoot of the idea on which is founded the proposal for the Imperial Institute. The Imperial Institute is to be a great advertisement for the Colony in general; therefore a museum of local products will be a great advertisement for the Midland District—that is the argument in a nutshell. The most satisfactory thing about the proposal is that it comes so early in the history of the Midland enterprise. The representatives of the Company who have accepted the proposal with vigorous alacrity, are not content to wait till princes and commercial magnates shall come to an understanding, and the British and Colonial public shall agree to begin a great subscription. Still less can they wait for the erection of buildings, the formulating of rules and regulations, and the general elaboration of everything theoretical. They practically begin at once the collection of specimens of all the various kinds of wealth within their territory, and to this collection they intend to assign a prominent place in the world’s greatest metropolis. Long, before the line is completed there will be a handsome museum of Midland products, to which attention will be drawn by many people as interested as they are powerful. The timbers, so valuable, numerous and beautiful, will be there spread out for the practical man to study, and the enterprising man to found a trade in. The coals will speak to the heart of the capitalist direct, the ores will be there to catch the eye of science, and engage its permanent attention with, the best possible financial results to the district. When the success of the Midland Company is pronounced, we shall be able to ascribe it to a process of advertising which never would have seen the light but for the enlistment of private enterprise on the side of our natural resources. There must, of course, he co-opera-tion extensive and widespread. The Company’s active representatives are too few to collect specimens, and the contractors’ representatives ore too I

busy; neither have they local knowledge sufficient to enable them to make anything like an exhaustive collection had they the time. They should have the assistance of the local knowledge which abounds throughout the district. Every one who has prospected should forward information; everyone who has specimens should forward a part of his collection; everyone who has a mine should forward samples of the produce; everyone who has any knowledge should lose no time in imparting it. In this way an organised effort can be made to take advantage of the machinery of advertising which the Company’s position supplies in London. Never has the individual enterprise of a great district had such a chance of powerful aid in the development of local resources ; never have prizes of similar magnitude being held out to any Colonial population; and all by private organisation, without a sign of Government help. The duty of co-operation with the Company once realised, the establishment of the widest co-operation, and the most cordial, may be assumed, we feel sure, as a matter of course.