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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9013, 28 March 1888, Page 4

The promotion of the Kawakawa and Whangarei railway is one of those things in which sound principle and substantial interest appear to conflict. As reported in our yesterday's issue, the settlers at the northern end of the proposed line have held a meeting on the subject, and notwithstanding the strenuous resistance of a few, the proposition was, as might have been expected, carried by a large majority. As a rule, the system of creating syndicates, and conveying to them large concessions of public lands, on condition of their constructing a public work, is bad. The Work could be done by the Government representing the State at an incomparably smaller expenditure of the public estate, while a limited body have conferred on them a monopoly of benefits of which the public are necessarily deprived. Still it is conceivable that there may be occasions when the State, like the man, may not be seized of ready money, and may consequently be reduce 4 to the unpleasant necessity of paying heavily in having pressing wants supplied. New Zealand is at the present hour certainly not in the position to make it warrantable to raise fresh loans on the public credit for the construction of fresh works ; and the question is, whether is it advisable to wait till she is, or anticipate the time by making some sacrifice for having a useful work constructed. It seems rather an immoral kind of argument to say that in the South they have done so, and that the Manawatu, the Midland, the Otago Central, as well as several minor works which have since been saddled on the country, were all based on the acceptance of this principle. Two or three wrongs do not make a right, but they certainly stimulate one to say that if the public estate is going so, we are entitled to our share of it; and, considering that North Auckland has been most unfairly dealt by in the expenditure of the borrowed millions, there is an additional argument that, seeing that the borrowed millions have virtually ceased, and there is no longer any chance of North Auckland obtaining even a portion of its share, that district should at least be helped by what the State can. bestow, namely, land and forest. It may with considerable certainty be affirmed that if the district in question must wait till the State is prepared to raise money and construct this railway, the present generation will not see that consummation ; while in the meantime the forest which would form a principal element in the proposed concession seems in a fair way of disappearing off the face of the country. A\ ithin a few weeks one-third of the Puhipuhi forest has gone by fire, and the remainder was just as likely to have followed, and as the preservation of that valuable property is so precarious, it had certainly better be devoted to the making of a railway than to feed the bush fires. The principle is really not one of ethics, but of mere expediency, and if railways are to be constructed on this principle at all, it certainly ought to be generally applied; and if there is any one portion of the colony more than another that deserves consideration in the matter of railways, it is North Auckland. That the work would be of great benefit to the district in promoting its settlement and development is beyond question; and notwithstanding the fact that the system of land grants to companies for public works is objectionable, if there were any prospect of the works beingdone by hard cash, in existing circumstances there is nothing for it but that our Northern settlers should vigorously unite in claiming to have tins _ small part of their right to a share in the public works of the colony recognised.