BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

Evening Star, Issue 2870, 1 May 1872, Page 3

BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

(from greville’s telegram company, beuteb’s agents.) Wellington, April 30th. The 21st session of the Provincial Council of Wellington was opened to-day by the Superintendent, Mr Fitzherbert, in a speech of nearly an hour’s duration. He congratulated the Council on meeting in their own new building, accepting the fact as an indipation that they were not likely to abandon Provincial Institutions. He did not, however, believe in responsible government in Provincial affairs. The experiment was an interesting one, but it bad been tried and proved a failure. The legislation of the last session of the Assembly had been most satisfactory to the Province, though he did not carry any measures without meeting with strong, unexpected, and unjustifiable opposition. During the year the Province had been enabled to payoff L 31,000 of its funded debt, being equal to 12i per cent, of the whole. After the land sale to Colonel Fielding had been effected, he had requested tin: General Government to raise L 78,000 only of the amount authorised under the Wellington Debt Act. He congratulated the Council on the extensive purchase of Native lands. The data for the construction of the first fifteen miles of the Wellington and Masterton Railway were, the Government informed him, ready for submission to Mr Brogden. The Government, however, he regretted to say, had refused his application for the delegation of powers to enable him to arrange for the survey and construction of the whole line of railway himself. As the railways were by law Provincially charged, his request was only fair and reasonable. It was a rotten system of finance which made ope party provide the money for another to spend; yet the Assembly was drifting into a system of Provincial charges relative to the Colonial public works, although Provincial charges in every other respect had been abolished. The Provincial Government were anxious to transfer the management of local affairs to local bodies as much as possible, Retaining only a general legislative and adxnipistrativccontrol, and devotingtheir energies; to the work of colonisation. The last tinapcial year was commenced with an overdraft of LIO.OOO, This had been paid and all engagements met, and the present year commenced with a credit balance of L 7,383. The estimated revenue for the year was L 75.151, and the estimated expenditure L 75,104, exclusive of a contingent public works vote of L 15,000, The general administration of the Province could be conducted for L 33,000 a-year, and he saw his way to raising a revenue of L 42.000, exclusive of any assistance from the Colonial revenue, for the next 15 or 20 years. If this prospect was not a great one, it was a sufficiently hopeful one to prevent them from throwing up the sponge and abandoning their functions. With pmdence and economy they could manag their own affairs; and if the other Provinces acted likewise, reform could be effected in the administration of the General Government affairs.