THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1900.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11540, 27 November 1900, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1900.

We are pleased to notice that the Minister for Public Works has come among us with an open mind, and with an apparent desire to remove or lessen our many caused for complaint. We hope that his visit of inspection will usher in an era of better understanding between North and South, and that ' the Administration will learn from his observations that the steady gain which the North is making—in population, in revenue-contribution, in wealth—is due to the inherent advantages which it possesses and not to any merely -passing attractions. Mr. Hall-Jones already regards the agricultural value of the North of Auckland as having been underestimated ; as an immediate result of a more equitable valuation of its merits he frankly admits himself impressed by the necessities of the district. Is not a strange ignorance of North Island capabilities the great cause of its otherwise inexplicable neglect by the Southern Ministry, and may we not hope for some measure of justice when those in authority follow Mr. Hall-Jones' example and take the trouble to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the actual state of affairs 1 At least let lis hope so, for it would be detrimental to the best interests of the colony at large if the Aorth should be driven, in self-defence, to form a sectional party. Nevertheless, we must protest against the charge made by Mr. Hall-Jones that the people of Auckland province are responsible for the opinions held in the South concerning our Northern peninsula. The press of the province, the members of the province, and everybody entitled to have an opinion on the subject in the province, have exhausted themselves these many years in pointing out the wonderful capabilities of the North of. Auckland, capabilities which Mr. Hall-Jones himself tells us arc at once made evident by a journey through this neglected district. However, we do not really mind where the blame for the past misunderstanding is placed, provided that in the future we obtain administrative justice, the present lack of which heavily handicaps our favoured province and the unquestionably superior island.

When we amalgamated our original provinces and forfeited our ancient independence, of action, we were not only in an inferior financial position, but in an inferior population position, and had to let the reins of power pass into the hands of men who neither realised the temporary nature of South Island supremacy nor the very different renditions prevailing in the North. The sparseness of the Maori population to the south of the Straits enabled the colony to secure for ridiculously small sums enormous areas of land. In the North the land had to be purchased bit by bit, often at comparatively high prices, and frequently the colony had to fight to make those purchases good. So the South Island outstripped us at the beginning, not because it was either most fertile or most suited for settlement, but because the land was available, peacefully and cheaply, when the Home-hive was swarming, as it is not any more, and when land in the North was harder to get and often dangerous to settle. .lad these conditions not existed, had New Zealand been found totally uninhabited, it is absolutely certain that settlement would have commenced in the North and only slowly proceeded to the southward. Auckland would have been the queencity of • a populous and thicklysettled province long before the Canterbury Plains were redeemed from the wilderness. There would have been no more suggestion of reducing our city from its natural position as New Zealand's capital, because it is not exactly central, than there is of challenging in Britain the royalty of London. And the proof of this is to be seen in the resistless flow of population to the North Island. The South had good roads long ago. It made them, as Mr. Hall-Jones forbears to tell us, in the provincial days by the sale of what would otherwise be now the public domain; the which it yhad every reason to do, only the facts should be remembered when the roadless North needs more roads than the well-roaded South. The South has a superabundance of railway, and is constantly increasing its undue share. Everything that administrative friendship and favour can do to help it, the South has— the North has beaten it fairly and every year emphasises the superiority of our island. Even the North of Auckland, a region,., which has hardly known that government existed, excepting for taxation purposes, has been developed at a most encouraging rate when we remember all its handicap; and the Helensville railway has been from the beginning one of the best-paying of Government lines. Our Southern fellow colonists must see from this that somewhere in the problem there is a factor which they have missed. We take the occasion of the presence of the Minister for Public Works among us to suggest to him that those who assume that New Zealand has only one climate and, consequently, only one reliable form of agriculture, have not realised the capacity and the potentialities of our colony. We pay the penalty of having those in administrative authority who have no faith in any agriculture but that possible inside "the forties." They are men who have seen wealth and prosperity won in the wintry South, under the same system as that which made a garden of Britain and" in much the same class of rich and heavy soils. They forget that Auckland province runs well into the sub-tropics, and that in the very nature of things North Island agriculture must take on a different

form. If Auckland "were, still the! capital, even if thg provinces had retained railway-building rights, this point would long since have been recognised and facilities afforded for a settlement which hitherto has almost been in defiance of government The Southern . wheat-farmer may look in vai& for great areas of wheatland north of Auckland. But where will the Northern orchardist look in the South -for lemon and orange land 1 And where can the small farmer get such varied crops a, on the richer areas in our mild and sunny latitudes 1 The North Island is essentially fitted for close settlement, as may be seen in its every industrial step. In its southerly districts it is remarkably well adapted for dairying, as has been demonstrated. Its northerly peninsula is capable of becoming one of the great fruit regions of the world. The lemon and the orange, the apple, the • pear, the quince, the peach, the plum, in their infinite varieties, all flourish with suitable cultivation throughout a region which has been scorned by those in high places as not capable of growing grass. We recently pointed out the enormous and unfailing demand for all these products ; but of more than this 'he North of Auckland is capable. Eeen as grazing country there is a great extent which will compare favourably with anything in Otago, particularly when we remember the mildness of the winter. For we should never forget that severe and searching winters condemn large areas in the South Island to absolute uselessness, while the same mountainous tracts, if located in our warm peninsula, would be of considerable settlement value, and would carry stock all through the year. But apart from this, it is to the small settler to whom the North appeals, and to whom it responds, to the man who uses the land to the fullest, and secures his reward in the course of the grateful years. Now he has seen what can be done here and realised how much it has been misunderstood, we trust that Mr. Hall-Jones will not rest until he has aroused a sense of justice in the hearts of his colleagues and secured that fair distribution of public benefices which is all we have ever claimed.