PARLIAMENT.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2288, 6 September 1870, Page 2

PARLIAMENT.

In the House of Representatives on the 29th ult. Mr Maoandrew moved that this House resolve itself into a Committee of the whole, for the purpose of considering that a respectful address be presented to his Excellency the Governor, requesting him to recommend this House to make provision for the appropriation of the sum of L 650,000 in accordance with a resolution of the Provincial Council of Otago. Mr Vogel said that this question had received the anxious consideration of the Cabinet, and he thought it his duty to make known the decision arrived at. He did not deny his belief that the circumstances of the Colony were such as to make it desirable that public works should be constructed, and that m order to construct them, money must be borrowed. He did not, however, lose sight of the fact that the Government, acting entirely under that conviction, had brought down to the House their proposals to construct public works throughout the Colony. The very essence of those proposals was, that regulations should be laid down under which public works should be constructed; that the Colony should give security for the construction of those works ; and that they should not be confined to any particular part of the Colony. He did not think the proposal of the honorable member was compatible with the scheme brought down by the Government and accepted by the House. He was desirous that the honorable member shonld have the utmost latitude to discuss the question, and he would not object to the House going into a discussion of some of the works proposed to be undertaken by the honorable gentleman, and notably the first three, which were works which would come under the p-ovisions of the policy of the Government. He believed the honorable member would find that under the Government measures he would have those works atten ’ed to efficiently rapidly, and economically, and it would not he in the least humiliating to the Provincial authorities or to the Province which he represented if the resolution were rejected. Of all the Provinces in New Zealand there could not be one which had a larger claim for a vote of money for public works than Otago. There was no Province which could offer better security, nor was there any which had more sincerely at heart the progress of settlement. There might be other Provinces of which as much might bo said ; certainly there was no Province which was entitled to more consideration in that respect. But the question they had had to consider all this session was, whether there should not be some self-sacrifice on- the part of the more wealthy Provinces in favor of those Provinces which were not so fortunately situated ? Were the wealthy Provinces to stand aloof and see the smal'er and less wealthy ones starve, or were they not rather to endeavour to aid the progress of other parts of the Colony, and by making them participate in the large works about to be undertaken by the Government, promote the general prosperity of the whole Colony* Otago had given up in favor of the Government measu-es, the charge of constructing its railway. That had not been disguised from the House, for the honor? able member for Clntha, in speaking on the Public Works and Immigration Bill, had not spoken from his own personal po : nt of view —for he entertained strong views in reference to the independent operation of Provincial Governments—but, by sacrificing his own views to those of the General Governmrnt, he had pursued a cnirse which was eminently deserving of being considered as a patriotic and unselfish course. The honor? able member had carried that feding so far as to admit that the local feeling in favor of Provincial works should not be allowed to interfere with Colonial public works. On the other hand, the Government would never use the power placed in their hands by the. Act as a means of curtailing Provincial authority. He bePeved, if the honorable member had not been under that conviction, he would not have supported the policy of the Government. He believed the honorable member was entirely of the opinion that the Government proposed these measures in perfect sincerity, believing them to be eminently fitted for the advancement of the country ; and that nothing was further, from their intention than tq use them for. the purpose of curtailing the power of Provincial institutions. Having adopted the principle that the whole of the Provinces should unite for the purpose of promoting settlement in different parts of the Colony, it would be inconsistent to go back from that position and to say that one particular Province should use its borrowing powers in such a way as wou'd lessen the credit of the whole by dividing up the borrowing power. He was sorry that it was his duty to object to this proposition on the part of the Province of Otage, more particularly because he had on former occasions, as Treasurer of that Province, come up cha-ged with the task of endeavoring to persuade the House to the Province to borrow money for most of the purposes indicated in the resolution; but now, as a member of the Government, in consideration of the large works they proposed to be carried on throughout the Colony, he felt it his duty not to assent ta the resqlutiqn Hy? trusted that the honor■cble member wqqld not seek to carry his resolution, feeling assured that, within two or three years, when he came to look back upon it, the honorable member would not regret that the responsibility of undertaking those works had been shared by the Colonial Government instead o£ being left entirely to the Provincial Government, as the reao’ution indicated, Mr Macakdrew felt himself placed in a somewhat false position in reference to thii matter, fer had he anticipated that the debate would have taken the course it had taken ho should have stated his reasons very fully for asking the House to go into Committee, but, from the observations which had fallen from the Colonial Treasurer, there seemed to be very little hope of bis beitu able to carry the r- solutions. However, h< thought, in spite of the eloquence of the Colonial Treasurer, that he should be able t( induce the House to adopt them. At all events he did not think he would be justified iu re liuquislung them without stating bis reason for haring brought them forward. H< trusted that there were many members o this House prepared, without interfering with the policy of the Government, to con sidcr questions, which were not included that policy. There were several objects aime< at in thes? resolutions which were not includes ' ** 5 -, , . :

in or in any way dealt with by, the proposed Ministerial policy. The resolution of which he had given notice very fully explained itself He did not know anything he conlcl say would make the matter much clearer to the House, especially as he was not one of those who were given to use a multiplicity of words for the mere sake of speaking. The matters tood thus: thepeople of Otago were desirous of carrying on certain works which were absolutely necessary to develop the resources of that part of the country, and which it was utterly impossible for them to carry on out of the current revenue. He might say that these works were very much for the benefit of posterity, and he thought it was only right and proper that posterity should be called upon to pay for them. If these works were to be gone on with at all, they must be a charge upon the future ; it was utterly impossible to provide for them out of the present. Ho would desire to point out to the House that, in asking it to assent to this proposal, ho was not asking the Colony to take upon itself any share of the burden which would be involved if the resolution were carried. He was not asking the Colony to run any risk whatever. He wished the House to understand that it was entirely owing to the action of the Colony that the Province of Otago came here at all in the position of a suppliant to be enabled to do what they chose with their own. But for the action of the Colonial Legislature in 1867 he might say that the Province of Otago was in quite as good a position—perhaps in a better position—to borrow the money on equally good terms as the Colony itself He knew it was said that the Province of Otago had a very large revenue, and why not fall back upon that in order to carry out the objects of the resolution ? He admitted that the Province had a pretty fairrevenue, and he believed the amount of that revenue was not likely to decrease 5 on the contrary, it was likely largely to increase from year to year. The revenue of the Province for the current year, from all sources, was estimated at something like L 330,000 m round numbers ; of that amount about oneaixth was set apart as a first charge iu order to meet the interest and sinking fund of the Provincial loans, which amounted to LSI,OOO. If the House would bear with him, he would just like to explain how that large revenue of L.‘130,000 was being appropriated, to show the reason why they could not avail themselves of any portion of it in order to carry out the works specified in his resolution, After deducting L 51,000 to meet the interest of the sinking fund on the provincial loans, or nearly onesixth of the whole revenue of the Province, the rest was appropriated as follows: For the police and escort service, L 15,400 ; for harbor, pilots, beacons, Ac., 1.5,260 ; for gaol establishments, LIO.OOO ; for education, L 21.750; for hospitals and lunatic asylum establishments, LIO.OOO ; for the industrial school, L 1,300 ; for the survey department, H6,400- that might seem a very large item, but it must be borne in mind that the surveys in the Province of Otago had been completely made, and were equal to those of any part of the world ; for the goldfields, the wardens, and the mining survey department, LU 000 ; for the department of roads and works, 13,200; grants in aid of out-lying districts, such as country hospitals, country municipalities, district road hoards, &c., these amounted to L 25.000 ; then there were miscellaneous items, including allowances to volunteers, encouragement to Native industries retiring allowances to officers of the government, acclimatisation, and a variety of useful objects, amounting altogether to Ll9 000; the main roads of the Province •were set down this year at L 70.000; then there were schoolhouscs and other buildings, Ll4 300 ; bridges, L4.QQO j wharves and jetties, L 9.000; immigration and the expenses of the home agency, L 14,000; then there were other miscellaneous items, such as coastal and river steam service, sheep and cattle inspection, collection of tolls and jetty dues, L 22,000; then last, and not least, the expenses of the Executive and tile Lsgisla-. hire, about which a great deal had been said, and that \yaß the only item that could be dispensed with if the Provincial Executive and Legislature wore abolished, and nothing substituted in their place—that item amounted to LB,OOO, nearly the half of which was the co-t of the Provincial Council. Itwonldscern from what he had said that after providing for the necessary purposes to. which he had referred, nothing was left towards ea’-ryiug «n any ftf the large works to which resolution point'd. It would be apparent from these figures that while the Province wa? n't in a position to go into the proposed expenditure of L650,«00 out of its ordina- y revenue, it was quite able so to regulate its expenditure as to pay the interest on the proposed loan, even assuming that the objects towards which this 11650,000 was to appropriated should not turn out to be altogether reproductive—an assumption which he for one did not for a moment admit. The interest on the proposed loan would amount to about L 35,000 a year, more vh«n hah of which they would saygjp the maintenance of the road between Dunedin and Clutha. It ■ww not only proposed to make that an annual charge upon th§ ordinary revenue of thg Province, but the Provincial Council had agreed to set aside, by way of collateral security for such payment, three millions of acres of laud, at present realising a rental of L-32,000 a year. Ho knew it might be said that they were tying up this laud as against settlement. He assured the Committee, however, that such would not be tho case. When it was homo in mind that the land proposed to bo set aside as collateral security was purely pastoralland, andnot likely to be required for the purpose of settlement for many years to come, ho thought the objo - tion would have very little weight in the estimation of that House. Moreover, the Provincial Council, iu passing the resolutions in f ivor of this loan, had inserted a proviso which boro out tho truth of his assertion with regard to the land being tied up as against actual settlement. The second resolution was to this effect : —•

“ That in the opinion of this Council provision should bo made in the Act authorizing the loan, to the effect that whenever L 25.000 of the loan shall be extinguished by payments, then that 115,385 acres of the land upon which the loan shall be seemed or any' cjuantity not exceeding that extent of acreage, may, f,n the application of the Superintendent, be released from the charge upon the same, and so on from time to time, when and so often as an amount e-jual to L‘25,000 shall bo extinguished by payments, that 115,385 additional aci’ts of the said land may ba no released as aforesaid, and upon such land being so released, tie same shall become available for sale and purchase under the provisions of the land laws of the Province of Otago for the then time being.” ( Tq be continued^}