THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1888.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9118, 28 July 1888, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1888.

Auckland readers of the Herald do not know much about the Otago Central. Many know little more than that, for many years past, it has been used as a means of getting money out of the Government. Otago members have banded together to have every year a good lump sum voted (out of loan, of course) for the Otago Central Railway. If a Ministry did all they could fairly do, and threatened to make a stop, then certain of the Otago members made a bargain with the incoming gentlemen to construct an extension of the Otago Central. In 1878-79, a sum of £55,000 was voted, and every year since

larse amounts have been put on the estimates. In the Public Works Statement of 1887, although it was evident that money was becoming scarce, and that we were face to face with a difficulty with our creditors, £70,000 was voted, and for the next two years sums of £60,000 and £40,974 respectively were to be spent. The total amount available for _ construction works was £170,974. Altogether, the Otago Central lias cost the colony over £500,000. The railway does not pay, of course ; but then we are told that a payable point will be reached sometime, if the line is only carried on far enough, and gets into the wilds about Lake Hawea. In 1880, a Commission was appointed, consisting of Messrs. J. M. Clark, O. Curtis, E. Pearce, J. Reid, and E. G. Wright, to report on the railways proposed to be constructed, and this is their judgment on the Otago Central:—

We are of opinion that the circumstances and requirements of the colony do not warrant the construction of this costly line of railway, for which the engineer's estimate is £1,100,000. But a very small proportion of the land _ through which the laud has been surveyed is at all fit for agricultural purposes, and the population spread over the district is far too limited to afford encouragement for an expenditure so large as that proposed for this line. The works through the Taieri Gorge distance of over thirty miles— of a very difficult and expensive nature, consisting to a great extent of a succession of curves through rock cutting; and, as there is no access from the country on either side, this portion of the line must remain totally unproductive. We should have been very glad to have got for Auckland all the railways recommended by the commission, but the Otago people did not take it in that way. They insisted on having a vote every year to carry on the line a little bit further, so as to make it payable, and in 1880-81 they had a vote of £68,000; in 1886-87 £60,993 was expended on the line. But at length the cow is milked dry, and shows systems of collapse from exhaustion. The Otago men—or the clique who have this matter in hand, and who are headed by that unblushing politician Mr. Vincent Pyke—see that there is no chance of procuring big votes in the future, hey then start the Otago Central Kailway Extension and Construction Bill, and the whole colony were treated last j session to an account of how Mr. Pyke revelled in flowers when the Bill passed the House of Representatives, how he smiled, and how he presented each member who had voted for the Bill with a boutonniere. The Bill supposes that the Government will make the line to Middlemarch, and from that point it is to be taken up by a company and be carried on to Lake Hawea and Lake Wanaka. The Bill authorises the Government to contract with a company or syndicate. The 20th section ot the contract enacts :—

In consideration of the contractors constructing the railway, they shall be entitled to receive from the Queen as a contribution towards the cost thereof grants of waste lands of the Crown, as follows :—]. Such lands as may be reasonably required for the permanent way and sidings, and also for railway stations, stores, and other buildings necessary, proper, or convenient for the purposes of the railway. 2. Other lands of the value not exceeding 33 per cent, of the estimated cost of the railway; and the estimated cost shall he reckoned at £850,000 for the purposes of this contract.

It is also provided that the value of the blocks of land shall be estimated at their market value at the commencement of > the construction of the railway, "without regard to the prospective value that may be given to them by such construction or intended construction." Then follow provisions as to constructing the railway in sections, and selecting land as the work goes on, and generally providing that the company should have abundant opportunity of getting the best of the bargain. The fact is that the Bill for the construction of the Otago Central Line will enable these astute people down there to seize a considerable portion of the land fund. When, some years ago, they found that that was passing away, they made desperate and successful clutches at it, forming exclusive reserves foi - all sorts of purposes. Now they are having another try at plundering the colony. Fortunately the opponents of the Bill are aided by several Otago men who do not relish the idea of a syndicate making a pile out of the transaction, and so large an extent of Crown land being handed over to a company. The most effective lobbying has been resorted to on behalf ot the measure, and stonewalling tactics have had to be adopted on the other side. Jn stonewalling Sir George Grey is a host in

himself, and can declaim at any length on the enormity of passing over to a company the birthright of the people. And it certainly is a farce that while

the Government hold on to the ownership of the railways which they cannot ■work to the advantage of the colony, they should be willing to part with the soil of the country by the million acres. Then wo have Mr. Goldie, who has not hitherto been supposed to be an orator, but who has had his faculties in this direction called forth and developed by the exigencies of stonewalling. We wish him all success, only hoping that his trained talent for speaking by the hour, and for taking a whole forenoon to utter a preface, will be carefully wrapped in a napkin,and stowed away in some of the rooms of the Parliament Buildings, and will not be brought up to Auckland. Then Mr. R. Thompson, the member for Marsden, was supposed to be a rough-spun, unsophisticated country member, who would require two or three sessions at least before he cofcld be expected to make a speech exceeding a quarter of an hour in length

he all of a sudden finds that five hours can be devoted to a mere preliminary canter. Verily, it is true that nobody knows what he can do till he is put to it. Wonderful are the resources of" strong feeling and determination ! The opponents of the Bill evidently felt that they had, to use a vulgar colonialism, " taken a big contract." They kept going along till yesterday afternoon, when, an adjournment was proposed to see if some compromise could be come to. The proposal for compromise amounted to an abandonment of the Bill, and an instruction to the Government that the line should be constructed to Eveburn, about thirty miles beyond its present terminus. The compromise was brought up in the House in the evening, when, on the interference of the Premier, the whole matter was postponed till Monday, when the Government are to state what they intend to do. We may remark that the Government on this question have put them-, selves in a most absurd position. Here* is a Bill which proposes to alienate at least half a million acres of the waste land of the Crown, and they leave it to be fought over in the House, it being understood that three Ministers are in favour of the Bill and three against it.