The Otago Witness.

Otago Witness, Issue 1159, 14 February 1874, Page 15

The Otago Witness.

DUNEDIN, SATURDAY, FEB. 14.

Kk "Vogel must have felt that he had no easy task before him -when he was called upon to make a speech at Nelson the other evening. Belonging to a Ministry whose policy of late it has been to be guided by, not to guide, the representatives of the people, he had no plans for the future to unfold. At Dunedin, he had gone through a long list of platitudes, leaving hhn but few to dilate upon at Nelson, if he wished to say something with the semblance of novelty about it. How pleased his audience must have felb •when the Premier allowed them to understand that if Provincial borrowing was to be sanctioned, Nelson would be fairly entitled to obtain a loan for public woi^ks. How unkind of him, however, to tell them in the next sentence that^ if other Provinces sent in similar claims at once, the Government might not Bse their way to support Nelson's application for a loan. Did Mr Vogel really think it possible that any one Province could ask leave of the Assembly to borrow without nearly all the others following suit ? If he did not. and the experience of the past few sessions must have assisted to guide bis mind in one direction, then what he said to the Nelson people about the possibility of their obtaining a loan must have been intended as a piece of mild chaff.

In referring to the progress of the Pub Works and Immigration scheme, Mr Vooel for the first time hinted that the present prosperity of the Colony might be due to the carrying out of that scheme, as well as to the high price of wool. Hitherto Mr Vogel has not ventured to say that the polioy «f which he in the frutho? hae

directly contributed to the prosperity of the Colony. He has avoided taking credit for the present state of things, which he has ascribed to other causes than the colonising scheme. Some of his ardent supporters, however, have not failed to attribute our prosperity to the progress of that scheinp, even before a mile of railway had been opened, or a dozen immigrants had been landed. Mr Yogel now says, however, that " those who said the prosperity of the Colony was due to the rise in wool, and not to the public works policy, should reflect that only thobe parts which carried on public works and immigration, shared in the advance." With every desire to Igive Mr Yogkl credit for any beneficial effect which has resulted from his policy, we must take exception to the idea that it has been owing to the development of that policy that money has been more than usually abundant during the past two years. Take the case of Otago. Is it not a fact that in 1872 and 1873 the woolgrowers of the Province received something like half-a-million more for their produce than they had been getting in the half-dozen previous years ? and this money has been spent in permanent impi'ovements and in releasing burdens upon station properties, and so with the agricultural interest. Thei-e have been two years of good prices for grain, and many farmers who a year or two ago were living from hand to mouth almost, who found it difficult to raise enough cash to pay wages, have now money in the bank, and have paid off during that short time heavy mortgages with which their land was burdened. In our hearing, not many days ago, a legal gentleman in Dunedin exclaimed :—": — " To me one of the healthiest signs of the times is to be found in the fact that many of the early settlers, whose properties have been burdened from the days almost in which their land was acquired, are now paying off their mortgages." Can it be asserted that this state of things has been brought about through the agency of the public works policy 1 Although it has undoubtedly been Mr Vogel's intention to ascribe the prosperous state of the country to the working of his policy, the sentence we have quoted, when analysed, means little or nothing. Were the words transposed as follows, it would still convey the same amount of wisdom that it contained in its original form :—": — " Those who said the prosperity of the Colony was due to the public works policy, and not to the rise in the price of wool, should reflect that only those parts in which wool is produced shared in the advance."