The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER, 7.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 118, 7 September 1877, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER, 7.

Have we a Government ? Truly a most pertinent question, and a most difficult one to reply to. That we have a certain number of well-fed and well-paid officials, enjoying the distinguised name of Ministers is, perfectly well known to v*. We have high notions of the dignity and responsibility of the functions of gentlemen who are called upon to fill these offices, and we confess to have brought the present holders of them up to the bar of our opinions, to have tested them by our notions of such important duties, and to have found them to be miserably wanting. There is no evidence of statesmanship to be found in their wretched finance. What shall be said of a Government compelled at all points to admit its impecuniosity, forced to rush again into the money market to patch up its deficiences, and who rashly consent to pay over to Harbour Boards, monies which they are not likely to require possibly for ages. Let us take for example, the case of Timaru. We know the Provincial Government of Canterbury promised to pay to Timaru the sum of £100,000 towards the construction of a breakwater; we know that a plan was obtained by the Government at a cost of about £-2000, from Sir J. Coode and that the estimated cost of this work was to be about £250,000 ; we know that Timaru has rejected the scheme, and that our neighbours are as far from solving this vexed question as they ever were ; and yet, strange to say,' this impecunious Government has been so weak and so imprndent as actually to borrow from .the Bank of New Zealand this sum of £100,000, at 6 per cent, interest, for which some one will have to pay in order to enable Timaru to boast of their possession of this nest-egg, and which, report says, they are lending out at interest at 5 per cent. This Government Act is called statesmanship, we suppose, but to our weak minds, it has much of the aspect of log rolling. There might have been sense and wisdom if the Government had honestly said, we accept the liability of Canterbury to pay this sum as soon as you have satisfa - torily shewn us that you are prepared to make use of it ; we acknowledge to hold this in trust for you, but under existing circumstances we decline to be burthened with more actual borrowing than is absolutely necessary. It is probable that Timaru has no faith in Government pledges, promises, or integrity, and succeeded through its representative in wresting the money from them, but it ■augurs badly for the high character of Government.

In precisely the same manner they have paid to tho Road Boards large sums of money, which should have gone to the Counties for a general and wider application, simply because Counties had no legal existence; and this chiefly by reason of their unstatesmanlike method ot providing proper machinery for local government. The Road Boards are consequently suffering from '' Einbarras de richesse" and they in their turn are putting out these -mo'iiesr to interest, while our most able leaders are borrowing money to bolster up their

credit. We "suppose they did not dare to assert, in the face of the House of Representatives, that they would hold in trust until a comprehensive scheme of'local administration had been arrived at.