NORTH VERSUS SOUTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13486, 13 May 1907, Page 4

NORTH VERSUS SOUTH.

Instead of explaining to his Auckland audience how it is that Otago has such fine public buildings and Auckland such wretched ones, or why it is that in roads, railways, and every other civilised facility purveyed by a paternal Government, the South has incomparably greater advantages than the North, Mr. Millar fell back on those imposing arrays of figures which prove stf much from the' mouth of an undaunted politician. He announced that- during the past five years for which statistics were available the expenditure on public works for Auckland Province was £1.850,000 and for Otago only £1,470,000; and he triumphantly demanded where the injustice came in when more was spent in Auckland than in any other province. He forgot to mention not only that Auckland greatly exceeds Otago in population, area, and re-venue-yielding, but that Auckland is rapidly developing while Otago is comparatively stationary. Though in the past enormous amounts have been expended from the consolidated revenues in providing Otago with public facilities and conveniences and even luxuries, and although that province has reached a point when its internal expansion is hardly noticeable, she still receives as much public money per head as Auckland, which is without these advantages, not only because it is largely undeveloped, but because for many years it has had to starve along while Otago was liberally* dowered at its expense. A large proportion of our increased population is from Otago, and though: the Otago man who comes here to settle leaves fine roads, plentiful railways, fine public buildings, and so forth to begin life anew where there are no roads, no railways, no public buildings, he gets no more consideration from the Government than if he stayed at home. This accounts for Auckland City having the public buildings which every man, woman, and child can judge of for themselves—without assistance from Mr. Millarand why in Otago there are post offices, telegraph offices, railway stations, and other edifices such as Aucklanders only see in their dreams. And Mr. Millar complains that we do not give the Government credit for impartial distribution of public expenditures, and asks us all to believe that he agrees with our contention that "public money should be spent where it is most required.*' Possibly this is a suggestion, on his part, that- as our " wonderful waterways " ought to help us to do without railways so our "beautiful skies" ought to compensate for the absence of those fine public buildings which adorn Dunedin. At any rate their Southern requirements seem so urgent and imperious to Southern Administrators that we suppose we ought to be thankful as long as th& North gets anything at all.