THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 1889.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9264, 18 January 1889, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 1889.

The singular looseness with which, the enterprise of the Midland Railway was undertaken has already produced a plentiful crop of difficulties, but apparently we are only at the beginning of them. Hitherto the outcry against that project has been from those who were opposed to it from the beginning, as prejudicial to the general interests of the colony, and its supporters have been the people of Canterbury, of the West Coast, and also of Nelson, who have all been more or less immediately interested in the construction of a line of railway uniting the West and East Coasts. But now the scene is changed, and the project is rapidly drifting into troubled waters with the very colonists who heretofore have been its mainstay. Not very long ago the contractor took exception to the taxing powers of thf> local authorities of the district through which the line i 9 to run, and it was alleged that unless some restraint was imposed on the powere of those bodies the concession of land would not be worth the acceptance of the Company. It was even said that unless relief was given to the Company in this regard it would be impossible for the Company to raise the required amount of capital in London. As the giving of such exemption from local taxation to the Company would be utterly at varian.ce with the measure of local self-government enjoyed by the counties and districts of the colony, it is obvious that this last demanded concession to the syndicate cannot be granted without causing such a public outcry throughout the length and breadth of the colony that no Government would have the daring to attempt to give effect to such an unreasonable demand; so that if, as alleged, the Company can proceed no further until the lands conceded are exempted from local taxation, it would be as well at once to recast the whole of tliis exceedingly lax and most unbusinesslike contract, and begin afresh. But now a new difficulty has arisen that is likely to produce in the public mind a more unfavourable impression than anything that has yet preceded it, for it is alleged that the Company in the administration of their concessions are acting in a manner that is putting an absolute bar to any settlement in the district traversed by the projected railway. As stilted recently in our telegrams a deputation has waited on the Land Board at Hokitika in order to show the serious hindrance to settlement caused by the reservations of the Midland Railway. Practically the Company have some six millions of land from which to select, for though a much smaller amount than this constituted the acreago originally intended to be given, the concession was recently modified so that any deficitin the nominal value of 10s per acre should be made good to the Company, power being reserved to them to make such further selections over an

extended area as would suffice to make up that amount. Practically, therefore, the enormous area of six million acres is held in suspense. The complaint laid before the Land Board is that over this vast area settlement is barred by the action of the Company, for it appears, as alleged, that the Company do not make their selection, but wait till application is made for land by some intending settlers, and a valuation put upon it, whereupon the Company select this particular piece of land, and the intending settler has to deal with them, an enhanced price being then fixed upon by the Company, sometimes, as alleged, to the extent of a hundred per cent of increase. It is needless to say that such procedure as this will simply shake off settlers, for if the settler does not buy, the Company decline to make their selection.

If this statement is not an exaggeration of the position, and apparently it was endorsed and emphasised by the

Land Board, the operations of the Is Midland Railway enterprise are p re . M sented under a new phase, and one that P is likely to bring the trouble to a '{'■;, climax. Settlement of the country i 3 jj| one of the chief inducements presented for Parliament holding out inducements for the construction of the railway |f and if, instead of fostering settlement this enterprise actually retards it, we lit venture to think that the country will demand, and compel, a reconsideration W' of the whole business. It has been, an. el parently, the loosest and most ill-con- ■ sidered enterprise of a public character ever launched in New Zealand. The H misunderstandings, concessions, and [' patchings up that have characterised the whole of the subsequent negotia. tions between the Company and the Government, plainly show that the agreements originally entered which were trumpeted forth as a satb t factory justification for constructing } a great railway, must have been simply trifling, and now at the eleventh hour we are confronted by a difficulty which evidently was never anticipated or pro. vided for by the Government. Hitherto all opposition to this enterprise of the Midland Railway camo from outside the districts proposed to be benefited. ' That opposition has virtually ceastil, and the colony has generally acquiesced j in the arrangement made ; but it is an ; ominous thing that on questions of !fe property, taxation, and obstruction to V ' settlement, difficulties of a very grave kind have arisen in the districts them. selves, the inhabitants of which, havo hitherto constituted the backbone of the agitation in support of the Midland % Railway Company.