WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE 'SOmHBBM MEBOUBX.' '■','.

Otago Witness, Issue 1465, 13 December 1879, Page 15

DUNEDIN, SATURDAY, 13th DECEMBER, 1879 The Public "Works Statement must have been listened to with .some feelings of astonishment by those members who had been prepared for a, general cutting down of, expenditure, rand a partial stoppage of public.^wprj^s.- It was true that the Government were committed to a considerable extjent by the action, of their predecessors in office. Major Atkinsons • <,haa repeatedly made the statement that Mr Macandrew. had forestalled the loan , by , over two millions. . sterling by means of contracts and engagements in excess of. the funds, in han.d.<, ,itt was, in reality, the House, ; that- < forestalled the loan, by appropriating, so large a sum last year in excess of, the available balance of the last loan, and, sanci tioning the commencement :o of so many lines that thp Colony was practically committed , tq ( the ,1 extent of several millions, , if , these, lines were ever to be , completed so as to be of any use. , There ( iCan be no doubt that Mr Macandrew ,went to the full length of his tether, and that the safeguards intended,, to liay^e been erected by the Legislature, were overleaped by a strained interpretation of the law. But except ,in' the case s of the "Waikato-Thames railway, we ,do not know that Mr Macandrewv cag fairly be charged , ,with going' beyond the authority granted. ,by /,t&e ■„.Legislature, the "engagements". tq, r . which Major Atkinson referred, being^partly, we presume, of the nature of necessary continuation* of lines for which the first vote only was taken" in 1878. But the first vote having been ; granted, the Colony was bound either to go qn with each line or to leave the work done in a practically useless condition. <.t When the tables connected with the 1 Hon. Mr Oliver's Statement are before'ruH we shall be better able to judge', whether the intentions of,, ParliatnoDiir have in reality been deviated ,'frpm by the late Ministry, and in what way ; for the present we assume that- we are only carrying out works the commencement of which had. been' .fu.ll3Pauth.Q-

tised. The fault, it seems to us, was in beginning a new public works policy involving an ultimate expenditure of £10,000,000 to £15,000,000 of money, with only some £3,000,000 available in prospective out of loan. The land sales were to make up the rest, but the land sales have failed us, and left a large deficiency ia the ordinary revenue. But what we had expected of the present Government was some attempt to retrace the steps' taken by their predecessors, some effort to limit and curtail a scheme of such gigantic proportions. Of this we Bee no trace in the Statement now before us. Promises are bestowed jfreely on every hand. When works cannot be immediately undertaken, surveys < . Are to be made and contracts prepared, and that alone means a large expenditure, even if the contracts are not eventually gone on with. The West Coast line, the line from Nelson to Greymouth, an extension from Blenheim towards the Hurunui, and other similar works which could well 1 have stood over fer some years, yet are all entertained as lines to be proceeded with, and on which more or less money - will be spent.. Then we miist, it seems, ! acquire several branch lines made under ; , the District (Railways. Act — as for in- ( stance, we presume, the Waimea Plains , ,line. , -To say nothing of roads and , water-races, and harbour works on the West Coaßt, the proposals now before „,the Colony are nothing less than gigantic, and such as in our opinion cannot safely be carried . into execution in their entirety . within the next tea' years or 1 more. It is true we 1 1 ate promised a 1 E.oyal , Commission to .^.inquire and report on the economical value of the railways commenced or proposed, and if it be possible to obtain .'.'.," suitable, men, whose judgment, will be 'regarded as both weighty and impartial, l ... some of the projected lines may be disposed of by their report. But 1 we could have wished that the Government had taken a firmer stand and made fewer promises. They are merely, providing now for five months' work before Parliament meets again, and might ' have confined themselves to an ■ absolute minimum of expenditure until they could obtain the data 'they hope to obtain by means of their Royal Commission. As it is, their promises will confront them on every hand . next session, and the ghosts of those that are unfulfilled will haunt them. More than thirty lines, or portions of • lines, are mentioned in the Statement as either in progress or in one way or other to be surveyed or j. put in hand. , Well might, Mr Mao' ANDREW sarcastically congratulate his successor on carrying out the policy '/which he had inaugurated. The Government are apparently determined ■' • on' doing this and something more, •< if we are to judge by the absence • of any warning to the contrary, and by the scale on which/ the present ■ proposals are- framed. The fact is that no Government has the moral courage to make a fair stand in face of the eager demands made upon it • from every quarter. If the Royal Commissioners fail in bringing the 1 House and the people to their senses, we fear the expenditure will go on till every stiver of the £5,000,000 loan is '-^one, and we shall find ourselves with broken credit face to face with demands • to the extent of other£l 0,000,000 for works which must be carried out before the lines commenced can be of any value or pay anything towards the interest on their cost by way of revenue earned. We certainly have a hope that the per- ' formances of the Government will be ' more prudent than their promises, and ' on the fulfilment of this hope will de- • pend the final result of the dangerous policy in which we are now embarked. For the present they have laid themselves open to a large amount of pressure from without by temporising rather than boldly declining to proceed one step further than the limits dictated by prudence will permit. The brakes have ;; ' not yet been applied, and the question is whether the power to use them has " not now gone, from those who ought to have exercised the full control. ■