THE PREMIER AT WANGANUI.

Evening Star, Issue 4076, 20 March 1876, Page 2

THE PREMIER AT WANGANUI.

[By Telkqbaml]

Sir Julius Vogel, after expressing 1 gratitude to his Constituents for the hone they had paid him, referred to the pleaei of his meeting so many ladies. Ho to the opportunity of stating that for a lo time he had been in favour of extehtli the franchise.to the female sex. Aftsome local allusions, he continued as- f • lows:— i ; THE TELEGRAPH CABLE.

Since ! few weeks ago— WeDington, the cable, which we were th anticipating being laid, has been succe fully laid, and New Zealand is now able 1 conuhtfnicate with every efher part of t civilised world. (Applause.) When think of the results which have been i, tamed I cannot conceal my gratification the very great success of the enterprise, believe that no long ocean cable haS 'hv been laid with so much success—witho one single hit<jh.—(Applause.) The co tract was signed only about June, last, ar the contractors were not bound, even sn posing all the circumstances to be ; of- 1’ most favourable character, to have t' cablelaid until April. I n&ed not tell y that it is a very rare thing for contracts to anticipate the stipulated, time for 001 pleting their work, but. the contractors 1 the ; cable finished operations two mdhf before they were bound to have, the finished.'—(Applause.) I believe that t importance to - New Zealand of this .woi whether we regard the commercial result its social results, or in some respects political results, can .scarcely be eza gerated. Not only will the mdlitipi i commercial transactions be very much i creased, but there will be an absolute Sa irm arising from the rapidity with whi< information will be at the command of commercial classes. Indeed, ■ln ? respect we have, I think, reason to %o gratulate ourselves upon the' rekdt; o' tained, and too, at a comparatively ve~ small cost to the Colony, whilst the use the telegraph is afforded at a rate whic compared with the rates l charged' other long ocean cables, is excessively Id (Applause.) . 1 " iVSCiIPtIOK o * witw ‘sssotramts. ; .

There is one matter ahont frhioh’let great interest has been exppeußed*--nCt cjn.l in this Colony, but in the other ooloriiasas to which I should like to give some ii. formation. It means the arrangement was able to make with the Bank of . Enj land for itis inscription of ■ our securities., had no direct authority to. act in the ma ter, and the arrangement is subject to e • proval by the Assembly, If the Assemb does not approve of it, the Colony has' i responsibility. The arrangement is of nature. Tou are aware that our securita . hitherto hare* been issued in the eha.} called debentures,* that: is to say, pieces paper-upon which is set forth; the oblig turn of the Colony for the amount oftl * security, and around or beside which a * grouped coupons; which ’anilli; represent the amounts' of dnjr sMed' inton'ale cutretiby 6T debbqturee, ; 2? oy, d payal* - toJjUrer, hhd-fpe^ tion they wi'Vbry : pass febm,)i|nd to . Oiiifp ■: ,£j U*:?

neoesiary, and whoever is the holder is the possessor for the time being. But a very large amount ,of money in Great Britain is - need not for purposes of speculation, but fer investment. When a man makes an investment It is obvious that the possession of a large number of pieces of paper like debentures is calculated to be embarrassing, especially as every six months it is necessary to remove from each debenture a coupon* and to present it at a specified place in order to obtain payment of interest This may be regarded as an inconvenience even to ordinary investors, but the matter is worse when the investors are trustees. - Those who exercise a trust naturally desire to- limit their responsibilities. They are not paid; they act in the interest of others, not for themselves, and they naturally feel it to be a hardship that they should have to run risks such -as are. inseparable from the holding of debentures. When there are two or three trustees concerned together, or a body of them, clearly the risk becomes larger, since one person must in a greater or less degree be the actual custodian of the debentures. Whatever devices may be resorted te, such as having safes requiring the use of two or three keys; each trustee having one, still there is and always must be risk in holding such paper securities. It came to my knowledge that a very large amount of money would, be available for investment i® l our securities if, instead of investors being obliged to hold those.pieces of paper, they could have the fact of their possession inscribed, and so run no risk of- the kind I have described. “Inscription ” means that instead of a Government issuing an lOTJ or promissory note, in the form of a debenture, certain books are opened in which the name of each person to whom the Government takes money is entered as a creditor of the Government. That is the way in which English consols are managed, and the same principle is applied to the management of stock issued by the Metropolitan Board of Works. That Board embraces in its operations the whole of the metropolis, and its

stock is inscribed by virtue of an Act; of Parliament. The Banh of England ke£ps in each of those cases books containing the names of those to whom the Imperial Government or the Board are indebted, the amount for which each person is a creditor being set forth; but the Bank also, for the convenience of those who desire, instead of inscription, to possess bonds or debentures which they can sell and transfer by hand, •ancels the inscriptions and issues bonds' to bearer, and "at the pleasure of the holder the Bank will at any time take back those bonds, and will reinscribe the indebtedness in its books. You will see what a value this gives to securities, for at the pleasure of the holder they exist in a. form . which will pass from hand to hand, and; so be useful for speculative purposes, or they cease to exist as separate paper instruments, • and the amount .of the indebtedness they represent is inscribed, that being a mode of dealing which is eminently convenient for purposes of investment.—(Applause.) It was evident to me that no other body tha.ri the Bank of England could successfully and advantageously perform the twp-fold operation of inscription and the issue of the bonds to bearer—that to entrust such functions to any but a most powerful and responsible corporation would be altogether out of the question—and I felt that if I could induce the Bank of England to perform such duties for New Zealand, the character and value of its securities would be very much improved. I am happy to say that I succeeded in inducing the Bank so to do, and that, too, at a remarkably low rate. The payment to be made to the Bank for inscribing new stock and issuing, when desired, bonds to bearer, for receiving deposits on new loans, the conversion of our existing loans into inscribed stock, and for paying interest quarterly or half-yearly, including all ordinary office expenses, amounts to only £6OO per £1,000,000 per-year, or about Is 2d per cent per annum.— (Applause.) I undertake to say that rate of payment is exceedingly low, and’is one‘to which the Bank authorities would not have agreed had they hot been wise enough to see that other Colonies would certainly desire

to take advantage' of such an arrangement. The anticipations of the Bank in that respect appear likely to be fully realised, for when I arrived in Australia and the details became Known, the Governments of nearly all those Colonies communicated'with their Agents-General in London, requesting them to use their efforts to secure that the measures necessary to be passed by the Imperial Parliament, should be made applicable, not to New Zealand drily, but to the whole of the Colonies.—(Applause.) Peeling that it would be advantageous for New Zealand stock not to hold an -isolated position, and that a uniform character of Colonial securities would be advantageous to all the Colonies, I was quite willing to place at the command of the Governments of the other Colonies the information on this’ subject I was able to supply to them.—(Applause.) HABBOUB MANAGEMENT. • I wish now to say a few words on the subject of harbours. The other evening, when speaking upon this subject in Wellington, I stated that I was of opinion that the Harbonr of Wellington, .which, is a harbour useful for a large portion of the Colony, should not be under purely municipal management I used the word " municipal” in the senst of the management being under the towr or city of Wellington. The remarks I ther made have been very much misconstrued

and m some places it has even been said that I was against the local charge, of harbour improvements. I wish, therefore, to take this opportunity of explaining, that such • is not my view, but that what I have said was. that the harbour of Wellington should not been entrusted solely to persons representing the city. I did not say that they would not be able properly to discharge the duty, but that it should, not devolve upon them only. I am a great admirer of representative government, but to be successful, yon must have in it representatives of the bodies interested, and it seemed to me that those who had the management of the harbour of Wellington should represent more than the city of Wellington itself; but' in speaking of the harbour of Wanganui, I am free to say that the same objections do dot apply to the same extent there. " I hops yon will not expact me to say that this harbour is in the same position as that of Welungton, which is used by a large portion of the Colony, whereas the harbour of Wangamu is more likely to be useful to the town itself, and to certain districts surrounding it. There would therefore be less objection to putting the management of this harbour under the charge of the town government. At the same time I must say that in any course you may take for the improvement and management of your harbour, you should thoroughly carry out the principle of representation, and If certain districts are called upon to share in the expense of improving, they should also share in the management of it.-(Cheers). I think, therefore, it is better to go beyond, the , ordinary town government. I am of opinion there should bo local management of li.ir- *"■ Irij 1 -and that the maoiiginnr * •■body should be of an elective, and not It nominee character, although no doubt there V W* be 801116 Kit* such persons KPSiMtajio* m Hu worship the Mayor and

the Collector of Customs, who, by virtue of their offices, might sit on the Board. My experience -has shown me that nominee Boards always begin very energetically, but their exertions become less and less, as they feel more and more that their tenure of office is sure. On the other hand, elective bodies are subject to a great deal of abuse, but still that keeps them stringent and makes them likely to fall in with the wishes of those they represent.-—(Cheers.) I expect to have the pleasure to-morrow of meeting the representatives of the town, and also the committee of the proposed Harbour Board, and 1.-hope that some arrangement will be come to . for placing the management of the harbour in the hands, of an elective body. It would be no good to have a Harbour Board while a .body like the Municipal Council continues to retain the foreshqre and the endowments necessary to improve the harbour. I should think, judging from what has been the case in other parts of the Colony—notably Auckland, Wellington, and Dunedin—that land reclamation here would be very profitable and besides that, as no doubt you are aware, it has been agreed between the General and Provincial Governments that >£9500 should be devoted to improving this river, that money coming out, of funds authorised by Parliament to be advanced to the Province of Wellington on the security of certain blocks of land. All that money is available for purpose; and, as the Provincial Governments have only a few. months to remain in office, it seems to me you will have a considerable sum coming to you for {improving the river and harbour, and if you act carefully and wisely no doubt you will be able to do much good with it. As you will have already seen in the course of my remarks, the policy of the present Government is one of decentralisation, and of allowing every place_ to manage its own affairs. Therefore I cannot hold out to you any great hopes of assistance from the Government unless you will assist yourselves, but, if you will do that, then the Government will be glad to advise and assist you. You have, it seems to me, every prospect of seeing, in the course of a very short time, a. sensible improvement in your harbour and fiver.

ABOLITION OF PEOYINCEB. I now come to the question of the Abolition of Provinces. During the last session of the Assembly which I attended—the session of 1874 it became evident to my colleagues and me that all hope of preserving the Provincial system was at [an end, and that it was our duty in justice to. the Colony itself to come down at once with resolutions upon the subject. Ido not say it did not give me very great personal regret. The Government, even then sharing with me the same regret, attempted to stem the tide by dealing with the Provinces of this island. As you have no doubt heard, it was just as the , atmosphere was calm and peaceful, when the session was rapidly coming to a close, when there was no great difference opinion between members, and when the government having a large support could, hope to' end the session with very little opposition—circumstances naturally pleasant to- any Government—that those resolutions were brought down. We thereforedid not come down with, those resolutions without entertaining a sense of great responsibility. We did not bring them down because they might improve dur position—for any desire of personal convenience, but we brought them down because fit the cost of our own convenience we felt that our duty to the Colony required us to do so. In my own case I may say that it was at the cost of many personal friendships. I had to contemplate the severance, or let me hope the disturbance for a time only, of political friendships of long standing; for example, I had not from the time when I took office any stronger supporter or firmer personal friend than the Superintendent of Otago, Mr. Macandrew. I felt for him great esteem. I felt for him an esteem founded on the conviction that there was no man in the Colony more disinterested or public-spirited than he was, and yet I know so strong were

For the continuation of the Premier’s speech see supplement.