THE AUCKLAND PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

Evening Star, Issue 3810, 11 May 1875, Page 2

THE AUCKLAND PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

(BfTnLBeRAPJL)

!! ; - > • AboKtiHD, May 10, t The Superintendent opened the Provincial Council at three o’plpok this afternoon. ; , He found that the Provincial revenue latterly ex-! L 10,500; from the .General' Government they should be entitled te L 17,600 ; fr#m capitation and special allowance, ant’. .land revenue &c----c°unt,L2,ooQ ; but such .large reductions were made; by the General Government tbatthey oomd not reckoned receiving two-thirds of this. . While the Provincial revenue was. aq small, w large revenue. Provincial, imd General, - amount mg to L 309,086, wa* raised in the Province, mak-i iwg taxation L4l2* per head ef the entire pepula J ,tion,„ so that each small fanner or laborer with a wife and four children contributed L 27 12s nearly from taxation towards the revenue. He . co*sid6Ndtl)e condition of the laborer one-of hafdslupy the taxation t>ein§f on the ries of-life, tailing heavily on the poor and impoverished. By this indirect taxation the laborer was deprived of many comforts which his providenoe entitled him to get. Small provision was mads from this taxation for education; Henext referred to the L 40.000 advance from the General Government. . Twelve thousand of that advance had been paid, bnt the Govern;)! ;ut refused te carry out the agreement entered into, on the ground that only L 24.000 was to be paid in one year, as if it were an animal grant,He wished the Council to consider whether it should accept any further stuns upon account of this advance, as it involved; the-sacrifice-; of half the land revenue in the first two years as repayment, and the whole thereafter until the advance was repaid, thus causing a diminution of revenue in future years. Such advances misled the public, who Appeared to receive Hie boon, but merely caused increased indebtedness and dependence.. No doubt the Province had been greatly wronged in its revenues, and he thought it better, instead, of begging for advances to be repaid, that they should .quietly but manfully require justice to be done to the inhabitants of Auckland; that an’immediate* stop should be put to the extravagant expenditure which was effecting their ruin; and insist on their right bf spending themselves the main part of their own revenue, secured to them by the Constitution Act, being at once restored to the Province.' By another enactment of the General Government -L50,000 was. granted to the! Pumping Association. The, Government now desired to make this a charge bn the Province. Papers connected with it would be laid -on the table for the Council to decide; whether they should assume tijat liability and annually vote such portions as the Association required. Of L 60,000 voted for roads and works in Auckland cnly LIO,OOO had been placed at the disposal ;bf the Province. The Council were aware the Assembly voted L 250.000 to purchase landed estate from the Natives of the Province. The . Provincial authorities had never been consulted in the purchases made', and knew nothing of tho Tomuntratiftn given to land purchasers; but the Province had been given 123 926 acres, and out of this 108,000 had been inspected for the purpose of determining the character of the land of which the Provincial Government had become possessed, and it was found that only 2,699 acres were in reality good agricultural land, 8,874 second class, and 96,180 acres of land of no agricultural value whatever. Considerable portions of the land acquired were also embarrassed by Native lease to Europeans for butting timber, jfco. Reviewing the whole position, they had the extraordinary spectacle of Auckland, with all its manifold resources and industrious population, and raising large revenues, making little or no progress* The cause was not difficult!*) discover. Of all Colonies, Auckland alone possessed no land fund, notwithstanding that the foresight of the Imperial Government had created a landed estate for the benefit of European natives of the Colony. This fact had im : poverished and ruined multitudes of industrious families. The claims of Auckland were a living right, and no wrongful acts of one set Of representatives could lastingly deprive the people of their rights. He still believed that,, either by adjustment of payment of-interest on the public debt or some similar means, a method must: be found for.making reparation to the people of the Province for the wrongs inflicted upon them, and in recognition of their rights to participate in the future in the benefits of a land fund. They would see there was no hope that any land fund of importance could ever be derived from the expenditure' of L250,p00. To rely on tbis as a mode of extricating the Province from difficulties would be unwise, as in tho case'of the loans mentioned, which he thought should not be recognised. They were being treated as children. He preferred to rest bn their' actual* rights'.' 'lf the large debt owed were charged on the land fund, settlement would be stopped—the interests of the humbler classes sacrificed in another form, whilst those most largely benefited would escape. He next alluded, iu detail to the revenue of L309,Q86 derived from the Provinbe, and endeavored to show that after all owing for gaols and Courts of Justice, L 250,000 was taken from the ■ Province ito spend elsewhere. This Was a .difficult thing to remedy. He reviewed the revenue of the Colony, showing that of an estimated total of L 1,450,000, interest absorbed L 860,009, leaving but a bare margin for making reductions; and although a large salving might and should be effected off that extravagant system, yet this divided among the Provinces would reduce by very little the burdens of the inhabitants, lib might be said that additional taxation must be imposed, but the limit of profitable taxation had already been reached in the direction already adopted, audit was very doubtful if further taxation in that direction would much increase the revenue, whilst it certainly would greatly diminish, the comforts and progress of the inhabitants. )The Provincial income realised fronwrailways whed completed would do much towards paying the interest bn the debt, but the cost of maiatenar ce and repairs for several years would be so large, compared with the possible traffic* on auch railroads, that but a very small margin of profit, if any, would be available for public purpose*.' The plan that appeared to hold out the greatest' hope of a considerable increase in the re venire was the attempt, oy largely 'reducing!) the present system of taxing, to lower ths|oost; of clothing and the. . prime : necessaries. of 1 life. This would'relieve tho mass of the people from heavy burdens which now impeded their industry and limited their - comforts. Small flamers and : inhabitants of cqnntrjt . tricta would then be able to carry on operations' freed from some of the burdens ny trinoh xbey were now .overweighted. But even when - this, was done, it would still be necessary to have ' recourse to a system of taxation, by which the wealthy would be required to contribute, to the; necessities of tho Stote tb afi extent • which bore some proportion to fie value of their iprepetty. He believed that iu this way a Ikfger reveaue|w*uld be realised|frudi Customs and 'ordinary taxation than watf. obtained under the present heavy rates of duty, and that com-' merce,a.bd trade'would revive and increase; whilst tho amounts obtained from taxes to which thoa« , realising large fortunes Were forced to coiitnbttte Would form a -' valuable addition to tk' e revenue. * Referring, to immiffration, he C OL*d raßtod the number of immigrants sent to wtth those to Otago and Canterbury,; #Hi- thought them small as compared with the incurred on their account. The Goremok' recently by his order restricted the powers of Hie eon-, ferred upon th« L by the

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