THE Otago Daily Times. MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1870.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 4418, 17 April 1876, Page 2

THE Otago Daily Times. MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1870.

When the Superintendent dwelt so eloquently the other day upon the progress and prosperity of this Province, not a few readers very probably imagined that he was drawing a little upon bis imagination to point his argument. We are pretty well used to the Superintendental eloquence. He waxes so very warm when he has to defend his Province that perhaps a good many of us are inclined to put it down to mere talk, and nothing more. Nevertheless, there is a good sound basis for his argument. It is palpable to anyone who will take the trouble to look beneath the surface that the indignant objection to treating Taranaki like Otago is founded upon facts. The word Province covers things most utterly unlike, and anyone like the Superintendent who is acquainted with the real state of things is rendered very justly indignant at the two places being put in the same category. It may be taken for granted that agriculture and artificial grasses constitute the main, sources of wealth in a new country like this. The amount of land reclaimed from its natural state will always give us a fair idea of the progress of a new country. If this be not accepted as a true index, we in Otago Hiay compare ourselves with the Northern Provinces as regards Customs returns, and have no reason to fear such comparison. Just now the agricultural statistics of so.me of the Provinces lie before us up to the 28th March of the present year. The tale they tell is so remarkable that we may be pardoned for seeming to boast of ourselves. We shall compare Otago and Canterbury with Marlborough and Taranaki, the two wealthiest against the two poorest Provinces. The area of wheat laid down in Otago amounted to 25,000 acres, in Canterbury to 57,000 acres, in Taranaki to 800 acres, and in Marlborough to 1100 acres. We shall be answered, perhaps, that the soil being less fertile in the South than the North, we have endeavoured to make up in quantity of ground for the poverty of yield. Fortunately another column in the return enables us to correct this most erroneous notion. The estimated return gives some nine hundred and fifty thousand bushels to Otago, or thirty seven bushels to the acre ; to Canterbury one million seven hundred thousand bushels, or thirty to the acre; to Marlborough twenty-six thousand bushels, or twenty-three to the acre; while poor Taranaki, sometimes spoken of as the garden ot New Zealand, gets only thirteen thousand bushels, or a very little over sixteen bushels of wheat to the acre. If we turn to the column in which the produce of oats is reckoned up the results are still notable. In Otago last year no less than seventy-nine thousand acres were laid down in oats, producing over three millions of bushels, or forty to the acre. Canterbury laid down seventy-two thousand acres, producing no less than two million and a half bushels, or thirty-eight to the acre ; while Marlborough has two thousand acres, producing seventy-four

thousand bushels, or thirty-four to the acre ; and Taranaki has the rematkable sum of seven hundred and seventy-five acres, producing twenty-one thousand bushels, or only twenty-eight to the acre. Comparing the relative quantity of land under crop of all kinds, Canterbury has five hundred and fifty thousand acres, Otago four hundred and fifty thousand, Marlborough thirty-six thousand, and Taranaki sixty thousand. We have before us in a compact form the statistics of South Australia, and find that the great territory comprised in Otago and Canterbury has almost as much land under cultivation as South Australia, and that while her average yield of wheat is eleven bushels to the acre ours averages thirty-two. We shall net weary our readers with more figures, but we contend that those we have quoted justify the Superintendent very largely in what may at first have seemed a vainglorious boast about the greatness of Otago, as compared with some of the Northern Provinces, with which she is so often coupled. As a matter of fact, Taranaki, for instance, should rank as a mere county, compared to Otago. Bruce, Cltitha, Taieri, Waifcaki, Waikouaiti, and Wakatipu, do each of them raise more grain than Taranaki. Ten of our districts do each severally grow more oats than the whole of Marlborough.

The one district of Waitaki has just twice as much ground under cultivation, of all eorts, including artificial grasses, as the whole of Taranaki, and nearly three times as much as the whole of Marlborough. We say again we do not cite these figures with a view to self-glorification, but merely to enforce the contrast between Otago and some of those other Provinces, which are sometimes, ex vi terrninomm, classed as her equals, because they bear the same official designation. We would ask our readers to look at the contrast with an eye to the new arrangements re railways, under which form that communistic standpoint so lovingly treated by Mr Reynolds and Sir Julius we ara to pay for the railway facilities of these Northern Provinces. They are, forsooth, to have the same opportunities of intercommunication we have. It is the old fable of the earthenware and brazen pots sailing down the stream, only under the new reading the brazen pot is to carry the crockeryware upon its back. The justice of such a proposal is exactly similar to that by which all the old identities of Otago might be compelled to meat together next week and divide their possessions equally. We ate requested to share the fruits of all our toil, our energy, our progress, with those of our neighbours who have been utterly unsuccessful. We are asked to enter upon this policy of communism on the strength of the motto— Union is strength. We do not think that many of our settlers, or even of our public men, have realised the enormity ot the request, or the weight of the burden we are asked to take upon our back. They cannot but believe that some of these Provinces have something to bring into the common stock—if nob Customs revenue at least land, or if not hind then at least grain. The truth iy, they have nothing. Whether it lias been the climate or the people, or the Natives, we do not know. We know this, that the proposal to go shares with a village community like Taranaki in everything is more impertinent than if Opoho was to suggest a common purse with tho City of Dunedin; we could put the whole Provincial population in one of our suburbs and not notice them.

We have such an overweening respect for constituted authority of all kinds that nothing vexes us so much as to see it, so to speak, overreaching itself. Official chiefs under a free and representative government of ai;y kind are just a little ;api to fancy themselves stronger than they really are in the saddle, and then ' they require to be reminded where they got their authority. There is Sir Julius now sending commissioners about New Zealand to enquire into the affairs of other bodies of at least equal authority [ with that which he controls. He haa in fact issued a Royal Commission, and the jseal is impressed with the arms of Julius Bex. If some questions are asked as to the authorization given for the expense incurred, the matter will cause an hour or two's debate and the good humoured gentlemen who compose the .Assembly will waive the matter with the bland unselfishness bo very common to those who are , spending not their own, but other people's money. And yet we fancy that, had our audacious Premier asked for a vote of, say, £200, to enquire into the affairs of the Provinces, he would not have got it. No doubt it is a very low thing to haggle over a few hundred pounds—terribly petty — but there are some people who will do mischief again and again unless they are brought to their bearings by this sort of thing. We have lately noted an analogous case to the unauthorised action of Sir Julius in his devoted admirer, the Mayor of Dunedin. It is only a very petty little matter, but it is just as well to remind our elected chiefs of the relation in which they stand to the law and its makers. Only the other day, without giving word even to the Police, the Mayor gave leave to some of the cabmen to stand at the station and in Manse street. The cabmen were a bit of a nuisance at the station; the Police pulled them up, and they pleaded the permission of the Mayor. What business had the Mayor to give them leave. He is bound by law just as much aa the cabmen, and, if he thought it a good thing to alter the law, he should have used proper legal means to make the alteration. It doesn't matter whether it be the Premier using the telegraph and spending public funds, or the Mayor of Dunedin giving leave to cabmen —the evil is the same. If we are going to give up the principle of representative government as now understood, and have a dictatorship, let U3 do so with our eyes wide open. Until we have changed our forms, we require all officers to be guided and governed by them as they now are, and any infraction requires immediate notice and correction. Premiers aHd Mayors and all such officers must be taught not to grow " too big for their boots."