THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, APRIL 5, 1897.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10408, 5 April 1897, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, APRIL 5, 1897.

In his interesting; letter which appeared recently in the Herald on the " Isolation of Auckland," Eev. Mr. Williams raises a point that is certainly not adequately realised by the residents of this oity and district. As stated by our correspondent, this isolation presents itself to any intelligent visitor from iAuekland to the southern portions of the colony; and though a few are to be met with there who may have visited the Northern portion of the colony, or whom an exceptional intelligence may have placed en rapport with the world n general, outside the range of their immediate surroundings, the general tone of conversation conveys the impression of an idea entertained as if Auckland province were an islet in the Pacific removed somewhere away by so many leagues of saltwater. A theoretical community of interest* is condescendingly conceded, but without the slightest intention of disparaging our importance or our interests, the circumstances and conditions of life in Otago and Canterbury and Wellington are assumed as oharaoteristicandexpressiveofthewhole colony. The same tone of feeling may be discovered further away, and if any one is at the trouble of glancing over most of the addresses on Maw Zealand delivered: in the mother country, by t wknr lecturers, intending to honestly.

couvey information about the Britain ' of the South, lie will almost invariably fiud that the speakers, if rom J southern portions of the colony, completely ignore the characteristics and even the existence of the Northern province. We have no intention ofcom plaining of this. It follows naturally from the fact that Auckland, from its isolation, is out of the ken of the great bulk of tho residents in the Southern portions of the colony, and that practically our resources and interests are nearly as little familiar to them as those of Norfolk Island or of Karotonga. This is not an exaggerated expression of the situation, and residents who are concerned for the development of our resources and the expansion of our i. terests of every kind, do not realise the injury that is done to then, by this sense of isolation. It is true that the sense of isolation may be mainly sentimental. But sentiment governs human affair* to an extent far beyond what « commonly supposed by eminently practical people. It may be said that the South Island is itself parted by saltwater from Wellington the entire and pulsating heart of the colonial economy. But whether it it that the short straight run rom Lyttelton to Wellington gives it the character of a ferry, while the circuit ous route round East Cape or the usually turbulent passage round Mount Egmont, seems to give Auckland alookout towards other and distant seas or whatever ma; be the cause of it t j g certain that a trip to the north as to the Southerner the aspect of a voyage to another country. We in Auckland who naturally regard our city as the hub of the universe, may smile at such a conceit, and almost i tv our Southern friends for their ignorance in not recognising that from our city all intelligence and enterprise radiate as from a centre, But when we travel beyond the r.nge of our own luminosity, and go among the people further south we are painfully disillusionised, and even humbled to think that our remoteness from the whirl of life really gives to our city the chara* ter of a provincialist or rural town.' As stated by our correspondent, "A city of 60,000 inhabitants ought not now to be in the position of a bus! township, that receives its mails from the outer world only twice a week, and that can only be left or approached pa the condition of wind and veathei permitting." We do not desire to apportion the blame of this, but onlj to say that it is a humiliation and » i shame to every citizen of Auckland, ' ' and that if our commercial as well ai our public men had had a tithe ol the energy of the men of Otago and Canterbury it would not have been tolerated so long. For it would bjimpossible to over-state the handicap , that this isolation has been to every interest of the city and district. It represents on a minor scale the disabilities under which Western Australia so ■', long languished from being away from the pulsations of industrial and commercial life that were throbbing in the Eastern colonies ; and had the means of communication been non-forbidding we should many a time have felt the overflow of the exuberant energy and enterprise of the Southern province* g The low price at which our country lands, and even town properties, haW always been selling is owing to thil isolation. The low rentals of houses in ':%/ the city and suburbs, which have at 'K all times been ruling far below thos< f' for similar and similarly conditioned i houses in the South have been owing f to the same isolation. The slowness of | the industrial settlement of our rural t districts, even the non-success of hun- f dreds of our country settlers has come I of the same isolation ; for just as the i stoppage of the stream of immigration, which is the life blood of all new countries, means staffnation and rloafK in *

colony, so has our provincial district languished from the barrier of isolation that has stemmed the inflow of colonists from the South who would have been attracted if they had only seen the undeveloped resources which we have id far greater abundance than are those of any other part of New Zealand. There is not an interest of any kind in Auckland, land, houses, in* dustries, mining, commerce, fanning, markets-there is not one interest but has suffered and is suffering from this isolation from the larger, busier life oi the South ; and it would be prudential economy if the people of the city and province taxed all their interests substantially to guarantee a capital or raise a fund for having that isolation removed by completing railway connection with the South. Our public men allowed themselves to be "jockeyed" out of the public money that was raised and ear-marked for this special purpose, and with that indolent laissez-fairt which is characteristic of the place, public men and private citizens have alike acquiesced in the spoliation, and have not insisted as they ought to have insisted at any cost, even by the overthrow of any Ministry, or the arrest of any policy, on having that wrong repaired. But this being so, the best that is possible otight to be made of a bad situation, and that isolation ought to be terminated at once by the opening up of some kind of land communication with the South. At the present time the trunk line of railway from Auckland reaches a point within about 130 mile; of the nearest point of contact with the

Southern railway system, at Stratford. Between these two points a coach road has been made for about 80 miles. The remaining 40 miles or so of coach road

should be completed, and well appointed mail coaches, substantially subsidised by Parliament, as in some sort a palliation for the wrong that has been done, should be put in commission on terms that would make travelling by them not more expensive to the traveller than it would have been by rail. When we consider the breach ol an honourable understanding involved in the non-completion of the trunk line as part of the original scheme of immigration and public works, while new railways have been initiated and completed in the South; and when we consider the wrongful diversion of the

oecial loan for the purpose, this is not

too much to demand as a temporary arrangement. And if the people of Auckland only realised the injury that is being done by this continued isolation less than this as a temporary sub* stitute would not be accepted.