THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1901.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11780, 9 October 1901, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1901.

Last night's public meeting may be long remembered as inaugurating a great Northern movement on behalf of certain great national interests. For, as was pointed out at its opening, the meeting was not allied to any shade of political opinion, but represented every section of the industrial and commercial community, both town and country, which thus combined to secure just and fair consideration by Government and Parliament of questions affecting the whole of New Zealand. Its dominant note was unmistakable. In the mind of every speaker—as of every Northern resident who is versed in the history of the colony— clearly present the fact that owing to the apathy and disunion of the North and the activity and unity of the South, great and persistent injustices are permanently our portion, while the common interests of the colony as a whole are frequently made subordinate to the local interests of Southern centres. This is no new idea. It has been so often and so generally expressed as to be satirically alleged to indicate the normal Northern temperament. But what was new and encouraging was the determination shown by every speaker to sink all other differences and to show a solid and united front on behalf of three great national needs: the Main Trunk Line from Wellington to the extreme North; the settlement of the waste lands of the North; and the San Francisco service, with Auckland as its port of call. These three questions overlap each other. They cannot be fully treated when treated separately. For the Main Trunk must be completed from end to end of the North Island in order that the land can be effectively occupied and in order that the full benefits of the 'Frisco mail may be felt in every corner of the colony; the land must be opened up and settled in order that the rail- ' ways may reap the fullest harvest of traF ; -d travel; and the 'Frisco j

service must be maintained in order that the tourist industry may become profitable and that the wide American market may be opened to our producers, as well as to afford the entire population that most valuable asset in colonial estimation —the swiftest possible communication with the United Kingdom. The Main line between Auckland and Wellington has been most unreasonably delayed in the past. In the future it may be the first to suffer in the curtailment of expenditures talked of by the Premier, unless its promised completion in three more years is vigorously insisted upon. The line from Auckland to the extreme North is in even worse plight. The Otago Central, tapping a dreary and arid district, has had £66,000 expended upon it in the past year ; the North of Auckland line has had only a paltry £15,000 expended upon it in the time, although it opens up some of the most desirable dairy country in the colonylargely Crown property enjoys a climate unsurpassed on the surface of the globe. The South has the smaller population, the less desirable land, the less attractive climate ; it provides the minor portion of the revenue, and is steadily losing ground as compared to the North : yet it ha 3 secured already nearly 60 per cent, of the total railway expenditures of the colony, and is advantaged yet to the tune of £175,000 yearly—last year it had close upon two miles of railway construction authorised for every mile authorised in the North. While the national revenues are strained to buy back land for closer settlement in the South, great blocks of rich and desirable land belonging to the State, situated in the provincial district of Auckland, are practically being held back from settlement. There is a really amazing condition _of affairs present in this part of the colony. Settlers are clamouring for railways, are wasting their cattle and sheep in long travelling to market, are unable to obtain fair going prices for their produce, and often cannot reach market at all, are debarred from establishing butter factories, cannot get metal for roads—and the Government, which monopolises railway-building, refuses to provide facilities which would return ? handsome profit to the national exchequer. Landseekers cannot enter upon Statelands that lie idle, waste, unoccupied. There is gold enough to build railways in the South, to ouy up estates there, to foster it in every way —while to the North there is the dubious prospect oi the San Francisco mail service being lost by Parliamentary haggling over a few thousand pounds, this apparently for little better reason than that this service is historically and necessarily associated with the Port of Auckland.

We have not got a Main Trunk Line and we must have it as soon as possible. We have fertile land lying unused and idle—Boo.ooo acres in this one provincial district alone, enough to carry 10,000 land-settlers and their families, with all the vast dependency this entails— and we must work to have it thrown open and made accessible. But the San Francisco service exists, and the question must oe answered within a few days : is it to be lost 1 That it should be in danger shows how needful it is that the detrimental influence of the Southern phalanx should be counterbalanced. Because we have been slightly affected by the navigation laws of the American Kepublic, laws which existed long before the Pacific service was dreamed of, this is pounced upon as an excuse to imperil a mail connection which, incidentally to its supreme national importance, is of local importance to Auckland, and finds in this harbour its natural port or call. It seems hardly conceivable that our Parliament should delioerately discuss a step which may eventuate in the cutting away of our direct communication with eighty millions of English-speaking people, a communication which is the swiftest mail route to London, which has been maintained for many years, which has just become one of. the most magnificently-equipped of travel routes and which can be permanently retained by a subsidy lower than that paid very recently for a slower and less frequent service. _ To think that we can hurt the American Colossus by so doing is ridiculous. Queensland will eagerly seize upon our opportunity if we reject it, and, in any case, any idea that a short-sighted policy on our part will affect the American navigation laws is absurd. It is of vast I importance to this colony that it should increase its connections with the world ; to cut off the most important would be disastrous. The North favoured the South African I connection—as a commercial route We are satisfied that it would favour ! a Vancouver connection— a commercial route, touching at Auckland, Wellington and Lyttelton, and terminating possibly at Port Chalmers. But it is intolerable that while Auckland is cordially willing to assist and support every national step for our colonial development, a bitter attack should be made upon the finest mail and passenger connection which the colony can possibly get, for no better reason than that Auckland is supposed to derive some special advantages from it.