The Borrowing Policy of the Colony.

With regard to the borrowing policy of the colony, the words of my election address are:—"The curtailment of the borrowing policy, with a view to its total abolition at the earliest practicable date." It is impossible for us in a moment to cease the construction of the lines of railway which have nearly reached the paying point, but I shall determinedly oppose one sixpence being spent, either in the province of Auckland, or in Otago or elsewhere, upon railways which we cannot afford. You have all heard of the great Otago Central line. I happen to know every inch of the country traversed by that. Otago Central line. I am an old surveyor, and I have had my theodolite on the top of every mountain that commands a view of any part of the country to be tapped by that line, and I know the elevation of every plain that is near it. I was in Otago when that line was projected, and when, five, six, or seven yean ago, they got up a great demonstration in Dunedin—my own town—for the vigorous prosecution of it. I went on the platforn to oppose it, and I was the only man in Dunedin who dared to raise a voice against the Otago Central. I won't say that I was mobbed, but I was derided as a rash individual, and as a man who was prepared to foul his own nest. However, I maintained that the line ought not to be carried beyond the Taieri lake and that there operations ought to cease for the next 20 or 25 years. The report of my speech was not all put in the newspapers. It did not suit them. I toll them the elevations of these plains—Maniototo and others, showed them that the greater part of the land was not suitable for cereals, and positively declared that the Otago Central would not be a paying line it were carried out as proposed, close to Lake Hawea. I still oppose it going past the Taieri lake. Similarly, I do not intend to promise you a single sixpence being spent in the Eden district. I shall oppose thin kind of expenditure just as much in Auckland as in Otago, and in Otago just as much as in Auckland. We cannot afford that kind of thing. We have been driving four-in hand with expenditure in all our districts page 12 and it must be stopped. It will take us all our time to pull ourselves together in order to work ourselves all right. We must have no more of these financial ruses for securing support, taking the form of the proposal of a railway, or the offer of a bridge. We must rather even revert to the customs of the good old times, when many a time I have had to swim a river on the back of my horse. (Laughter.) There must be an absolute end to this useless and wasteful expenditure of money.