THE MINISTRY AND THE NORTH ISLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8082, 24 September 1887, Page 3

THE MINISTRY AND THE NORTH ISLAND.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sib, — The result of Monday's polling will decide the destinies of the colony for the next three years, and the most serious consideration for the electors of the North Island is, will they support the continuance in office of a Ministry which, whatever may be its professions, is committed to a policy of extravaganceto one of never-ceasing expenditure on South Island works at the expense of the colony, by which the North Island is made to suffer ? Three-sevenths of the population of the colony are in the North Island, and yet it has but some 620 miles of railway, while the South Island has about 1100 miles, and out of a railway expenditure of £14,077,735 12s Id, only £5,124,196 19a 101 has been spent in the construction of railways in this Island. Look again at the amount spent in the construction of water-races on goldfields ; £80,708 19s 3d North, as against £429,702 10a 4d South, up to the 31st March, 1837. Nor let it be supposed that the readjustment of representation which was effected last session, against the secret wishes of the Ministry, and in the teeth of their intrigues to get the Bill shelved by a side wind, will suffice to redress this iniquitous inequality of expenditure. No, the South Island still has thirteen members more than the North, and special care should be exercised that bo candidate with Southern interests or proclivities be returned by a North Island constituency. You, Sir, have pointed this out in the case of Mr. J. Aitken Connell, but I contend that the same rule applies to every supporter of the present Ministry, and therefore with still greater urgency to every member of the administration. (Jan it be that the circumstances under which Sir Julius Vogel last left England and threw himself in the arms of Canterbury are already forgotten ? That district was at the last ebb of depression, and it was openly avowed that some gigantio jobs must be worked, some heavy draughts made on the public Treasury, for whatever objeots or uitdar whatever plea,or Canterbury mast bust. Under those circumstances wh»t was required to work the jobs was not so much an able and honest politician as a representative, but just such aD individual as Sir Julius Yogel had proved himself. Turning to Aristophanes' " Birds —and, strange to say, " Vogel" anglioiied means also bird, evidently a very blunt undesigned coincidence—we find the discontented citizens giving the hoopoe the following very cogent reasons Jfor having sent for him:— " Because you were a man, the same as us ; I

and found yourself in debt, the same as usj; and did not like to pay, the same as us." Be it as it may, Canterbury evidently thought Sir Julias the most appropriate "bird " to constitute a Nephaleaoxygeia—a city of cuckoo oloud land, in the South Island. He closed with the proposals, and has ever since held a brief for his Canterbury constituents. Look to his whole line of conduct as a Minister; his advocacy of the notorious Meigga' proposals; the several Southern railway jobs that have at various times startled the colony; his deliberate state* meat in the session of IBS 6, that he opposed the passage of the Representation Bill, because it did not suit the interests of his constituents. Look at hiß persistent efforts to commit the colony to expenditure on South Island projects. What has been done in the past will continue to be done in the future, unless the North Island constituencies assert themselves and reject every candidate who has not unequivocally pledged himself to rots against the continuance In office of the present administration. The question of who is to sucoeed them is one of minor im« portanoe, and once the Stout- Vogsl Ministry is expelled from office, the two burning re» quirementa of the Colony—retrenchment and readjustment of taxation—will be found easy of solution. I will, with your permission, show in another letter, dealing with thci Hon. Joseph A. Tole, the utter nollowness of the pre* tensions of the Government in these two particulars.—l am, &c., W.