Chapter VI.
The Stout-Vogel Combination.
The new spirit shown by the House when it discharged the Continuous Ministry was caught up by the Stout-Vogel Government, which made an honest attempt to improve the colony’s position at home and abroad.
One of its first actions, however, was to reward Canterbury for the magnificent services rendered by that province’s members. For many years Canterbury residents had clamoured for the construction of a railway to unite the east and west coasts of the South Island. This work was included in Sir Julius Vogel’s Public Works Policy of 1870. Sir George Grey poetically described the line in 1879 as the bond of matrimony between two wealthy, beautiful, and powerful provinces. Mr. Seddon and other southern members never let a session pass without some reference to it. The route had been fixed, surveys had been made, information had been collected, and Canterbury and Westland had raised their voices in concert to urge the State to take practical steps so that a beginning might be made.
In spite of opposition from Auckland, the Government had a Bill passed authorising the construction of the line by a private company on the land-grant system. The carrying of the Bill was received with jubilation in Canterbury and Westland, and the people looked forward to the speedy construction of a railway which was to open up a new country and create another little world. Over twenty years later, however, the line is incomplete, and at least five more years must pass before it can bring about the union of the east and the west.
In his Financial Statement of 1884, Vogel used a happy phrase, which expressed the bright view he took of the dismal outlook. “With a reinstated finance and diminished expenditure,” he said, “our country will raise itself from its apathy and spring
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