The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. FRIDAY, 15th OCTOBER, 1886.

Southland Times, Issue 9349, 15 October 1886, Page 2

The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. FRIDAY, 15th OCTOBER, 1886.

Mb Ballance is a lucky man and minister. The session is no sooner over than some town or township, local body or association, is ready to entertain him at a banquet. Geoseberry champagne and the Ministry of Lands would tbuß seem to have some natural affinity for each other. Or do they drink colonial or Auckland and Wanganui wine on such occasions, in honour of the honourable gentleman's newborn zeal in behalf of native industries ? It would be patriotic to do so, even at the risk of the colic or other unhappy consequences. Be the liquor what it might, good, bad, or indifferent, native or foreign, the Minister of Lands, Defence, and Native Affairs was duly banqueted at Masterton on Monday evening last by the members cf the Small Farms Association ; and here is what he is reported to have said on the Bubject of roads and railways, or rather roads versus railways. "He congratulated the settlers oo the progress they were making, and said that in dealing with the land question his desire was to secure successful settlement and afford opportunities to sons of settlers who had saved money to settle upon the land. There was one great thing to be done, or settlement would not be so successful as it ought to be, and that was making roads. He believed railways were not nearly so important as roads for the settlement of the country. Of course main arterial railways to connect the chief centres of population, were necessary ; but, taking th« vast balk of the railways of the colony into account, the money yielded by them, and the settlement they had encouraged, they were not to be compared with roads. He therefore believed that if the depression was to be removed they must push oa road- making. They must curtail the amount to be expended on railways and augment the amount to be Bpent on roads to open up the country." Now this is in the highest degree interesting, not to say amusing, inasmuch as it is the very opposite of what his two superiors, the Premier and the Colonial Treasurer, have been preaching in season and out of season for the last year or two. We must give up spending money on roads, as the Major did so lavishly,especially up Taranaki way, and lay out every shilling we can spare or borrow on railways. This, we say, has been the burden of their prophecy. As far as we remember, too Premier did not stop to emphasise the difference between the two kinds of expenditure in his Invercargill speech. If we are not very much mistaken — and we listened very carefully to what he said — it was of the general expenditure on public works that he was speaking when he announcer! his taperingoff policy. But Sir Julius Yogel of course knew better what his confederate said than the people who listened to him— nay knew the Premier's meaning better than he did himself. Accordingly when addressing some meeting shortly afterwards— *at Wellington, we think — be bad the hardihood to say that Sir Robert (then plain democratic Mr Robert Stout)only meant to taper off oq roads, for tbat we could not possibly go wrong in the matter of railway making ! The Treasurer was all for railways, and as a general statement he did his friend no wrong in saying that he was all for railways too. Tnis was in fact, in their own opinion, one of the most striking and most characteristic differences between their policy and tbat of their predecessors in office. And as a mutter of fact the loan which has just been placed pn the London money market is to be or at least was to be expended, every penny of it, on railways. Why then these statements of Mr Ballance about the all importance of toads? "He believed" — so be is reported to have said— "that railways were nol nearly so important as roada for the settlement of the country." What will Sir Julius and S r Kobert e&y when they read this statement of their understrapper? "Our Minister of Lands is Burely off h?a head,'' we caa imagine the elder remarking, per telegram, to the younger K.C.M.G., and the.younger replying, "I will put him through his facings when I get back from this poisoning case. He always puts his foot in it, when I am at a distance." It will be remembered that this Minister in leading strings blundered most egregiouely several times last recess when away from his colleagues. And such we take to be the explanation of his speech at Masterton, as far wit relates to roads aad railways, ft '

is merely one of Mr Ballance'a blunders, and mast jnot be looked apon as indicating the slightest change in the Ministerial policy, far less bucq a change aa a complete reversal. The Minister of Lands, who is an essentially small-minded person (it was he by tbe way who had the cheek to refer to Mr Tincent Pyke, a man infinitely his Buperior, as a second-rate politician, or something of that sort) — this small-minded Minister of L&Ddp; was so absurdly fall of himself and his peddling attempts at settling working people on potato patches (in many cases a very questionable advantage) that ho i forgot all that^tiis two head bummers of the Cabinet had said about railways, and went in with a vengeance for roads to his village I settlements. This, we have no doubt, is I the whole secret of his clatter at the Mas j lerton banquet. There is no need to refer to the probable effects of the gooseberry champagne or the Wanganui tokay, or whatever the liquor may have been with which they moistened their patriotism. We question very much if Sir Julius Vojrel, or ev^n Sir Robert Stout, would trait their devout follower with a secret. It turns out; after all that he did blab about the result of the analysis of Captain Cain's remains. The Wellington correspondent of the Lytielton Times dis tinctly says so. "Mr Baliance, whom I called upon this afternoon, states that the police have not yet communicated with him upon the eubject, and he knows nothing officially, but he has authorised me to say it is a fact that antimony in considerable quantities had been found in the remains of Captain Cain. He says : ' I do not wish to depart from what I originally said. I know of the discovery of antimony in the body, but I simply say I have received no official information about it.' " Here's a pretty go. Tha analynts were bound over, and very properly bound over, to secrecy, and a member of the Government — a weak member it is true, but still a member of the Government — lets the cat oat of the bag. If the counsel for the defence in the Hall Houston case do not make a pretty strong point of this scandalous disclosure they will be sadly wanting in their duty as advocates. The correspondent of the Lyttelton Times indeed says tbat tbe AttorneyGeneral " was originally in favour of the fact (we presume by this is meant the result of the analysis) being published," aud that he " expressed an opinion that it was useless to conceal it," by which last statement the honourable gentleman no donbt meant tbat it wo.uld be useless to try and conceal it if Mr Ballance were within reach of an interviewer. We cannot, however, agree with the AttorneyGeneral as to the expediency or propriety of publishing the resulc of the analytic. The correspondent, however, says that he afterwards changed his opinion, which is so far good, but it is simply a disgrace to the Government thtt a matter which they desired to be kept secret should have been disclosed by one of themselves. There were two or three other matters referred to in the banquet speech of the Minister of Lands on which we intended to make some remarks, but enough for the present of Mr Balianoe.