MR. MACANDREW'S PUBLIC WORKS POLICY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume III, Issue 778, 9 October 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

MR. MACANDREW'S PUBLIC WORKS POLICY.

The following comment upon the respective merits of the Public Works policies of the Colonies of New Zealand and Victoria, are from the Australasian. We copy it, not because we think the opinion of the Australasian on our polities is worth anything—for we have had conclusive evidence that it is not—but because it speaks in paise of the chef d'ceuvre of the present Government, and draws a comparison between the policies of New Zealand and Victoria favorable to the former : —lt has been the fashion for years past to point to New Zealand as the enfant terrible of the Colonies for rash enterprise and venturous expenditure on public works. But a perusal of the important public works statement submitted to Parliament by Mr. Macandrew shows that the programme of railway construction embodied in it, extensive as it is, is cautions and prudent to a high degree as compared with the loose, and extravagant, and wholly political proceedings of our own Ministry. We do not refer to the distribution or extent of the projected railways—a matter on which it would be impossible for any one outside the Colony to offer any authoritative opinion. What we pay attention to is the means by which it is contemplated to raise the money for the

construction of the proposed lines —a sum of L 8,385,000. Of this sum it is only sought to raise L 3,000,000 by way of additional loans, and thus the _ state creditor is offered security of L 8,350,000 of railways for a loan of little over a third of the niji"!inf. The Government has in. lints', available from past loans, L2,000.<j00. It expects that" the public i-orks f'Mijd from ordinary revenue during -, he i. xi. li--<= years will amount to i.3,.ioj.vki:>. To those who consider this i.-:riiii-.':t -o! unduly large expectation, Mr. Macii!»"■■•!.• i■; ::irterates the immense area of G), - '•- which the proposed railwavs >.-.<■•■■!'•< oyiou up, and to which they would to-, •■■ a value of- L 5 and upwards per ueiv. In the Middle Island alone 400,000 acres of Crown lands will be thus affected, and Mr. Macandrew even ventured to think that the whole estimated cost of the lines to be made in the Middle Island, L4,G50,000, might be defrayed from the proceeds of tiie Crown land that would be rendered available for sale. Compare this system with that in vogue in this Colony, and we see that the one is based on business principles, and the other on principles —to call them such —which, if acted on by a private person, would soon land him in the Insolvent Court. We, in the first place, give away the laud at a ridiculously inadequate price to men who in many cases sell it to a purchaser at five times the cost they pay to the State. We then make railways to add still further to tho value of these lands, and the cost we raise by loan to remain as a burden on the necks of future generations, when the last acre of the public estate has been recklessly squandered. [Exactly what our Governments have been doing, and would be doing now, but for the accession to power of Sir George Grey, whom the Argus avid Australasian so roundly abuse.—Ed. E. M.J