Land Nationalisation, like i National Insurance, will never come to pass. | Each is a theme upon which it is possible to build some very attractive theories, but each, I think, is devoid of the possible and the | practical. In the cose of the laud, the feel ing of ownership stimulates industry, and we know bow well the truth of the statement is exemplified in the case ef the peasant pro prietory of Franco, My own belief ia that the perpetual leaseholder will in lime himself solve or dissolve this pretty theory by himself becoming the freeholder. But then this ought to be added, that if the system has the effect of getting the people on the land, aud of making them ultimately freeholders, it will have accomplished something. Then come two questions of great import ance to tho City and Port of Wellington, namely, the questions respectively of the extension of the Middle Island Main Trunk Line northwards, and the construction of the Central Line from Auckland downwards. In regard to the first of these ' questions, the honor of tho Legislature is pledged by Act to the expenditure of £IBO,OOO in the exten sion of tho Middle Island Trunk Line north ward towards Cook Strait, and no representa tive of Wellington does his duty who does not insist that this money shall be spent in accordance with its specific allocation ia tho schedule to the New Zealand Loan Act, 1882 (the Three Million Loan), By political intrigue the Canterbury members have ex torted from tho Government a pledge that the £IBO,OOO shall bo diverted, if possible, to the construction of the Hokitika-West Coast Line, the plain object to make Christchurch the northern eutrepdt for the trade of the Middle Island, instead of allowing it to come to its : natural outlet in Cook Strait. In regard to 1 the construction of the Northern Main Line, the object of the Auckland members —from whom a powerful section of a possible Go ■yernment may come—ia to divert the line westwards in order to gratify the commercial rapacity of the mercantile community of Auckland. I have spoken to many Auck land residents upon this subject, and each has unselfishly declared that 'any expenditure upon the proposed western route would be an unpatriotic ivaste of public money. 