THE PREMIER AT AUCKLAND.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 100, 25 September 1874, Page 4

THE PREMIER AT AUCKLAND.

We publish the following extracts from the speech delivered by Mr Vogel at Auckland as being of general public interest. They are taken from tlje report of the Daily Southern Cross: — PROVINCIAL DEMANDS UPON THE COLONIAL REVENUE. Those who have had charge of the policy of Immigration and Public Works, from its initiation to the present time, have endured many difficulties rather than they would come down to the House with recommendations for constitutional changes. But endurance has its limits ; and last session it was felt that the time had arrived when it was necessary to make a stand upon the subject, and to ask the House and country fairly to consider it. Figures pointed unmistakably in that direction. In dealing with this provincial system, I ask you to allow me to eay —and I hope that I shall not do it in a disrespectful manner, or in a way to lead you to suppose that I desire to say anything disrespectful—but I must ask you to allow me to say, that those who have not a knowledge of different parts of the colony are somewhat at a disadvantage in judging upon questions which affect the whole colony. I am quite sure that a large number of those who hold that they have a right, from this place, to say not only what is good for themselves, but also to insist upon what shall be accepted as good for the rest of the colony, have not that acquaintance with some parts of the colony which it is desirable they should possess. The difficulty of dealing with this provincial question is this—that the conditions throughout the country are exceedingly various in their nature—that there is really a very wide range of facts which have to be recognised, when the question is looked upon from a colonial poiut of view. There is first the Parliamentary pressure which the existence of nine different Governments enables those who are lepresentatives of those Governments to bring to bear upon the Central or Colonial Government ; and this is a matter which has bad immense influence upon the past finance of the colony, and has rendered it almost impossible for any Colonial Treasurer to sit down and decide what is desirable for the colony, or even to take into calculation what would be necessary to meet the varying financial conditions of the different portions of the country. In other words, and putting the matter very plainly, the nine provinces, when they choose to put forward their representative strength, can make any Government of the colony very weak in its action, instead of leaving to it such strength as the supreme Government of the colony should possess. [Applause.] But I do not wish you to suppose that that is primarily the cause of the changes whieh have been proposed. The figures which elucidate the financial position of this island are calculated to make a startling impression. It appears that during the five years ending the 30th June, 1874, there were expended in this island, either by the colony or out of moneys provided by the colony, no less than £3,389,000 ; that; during the three years, 1870-71, 1872-73, and 1873-74, there was expended in this island, either by the colony or out of moneys provided by the colony, no less than £2,357.()()(), as against, during the same three years, £448,000 expended out of the pure y provincial revenue. I think nothing can be more clear than that those who owe to the taxpayers of the colony the explanations and the obligations consequent upon the raisiug of taxation, should also hare control of the

expenditure. That one Government should raise money and another should spend it, was altogether fatal to those conditions of responsibility which the people should demand from those who expend public money. When we came to deal with these figures—£2,3oo,ooo against £44B,ooo—it seemed to the Government that they could not longer defer asking the question, whether it was worth while to have an expensive artificial machinery doing so little, while the Government of the colony had to provide and to do so much. We then had very careful accounts prepared, showing the provincial expenditure in this island during the year ending December 30th, 1873. I may say—and I presume none of you will seek to deny—that you have not satisfactory institutions in this island, and especially in this province. [Applause.] I say that provisions made for education, for charitable aid purposes, for the cure of lunatics, and for gaol are not satisfactory. It is beyond all question that such is the case. When we look into the apportionment of expenditure, we find that whilst the colony contributed, in the shape of capitation allowance for the year, £BB,OOO for this island, the entire expenditure in the island, during the year, for harbors, hospitals, asylums, charitable aid, police, gaols, and education, amounted to £58,000, or deducting the special revenue derived from from those services, that the expenditure on them amounted to but £51.000. That is to say, while the colony provided, purely for the purposes named, £BB,OOO, the amount expended upon them was no more than £51,000, and with this result, that the institutions themselves were and are eminently unsatisfactory. You have constantly been harassed in this province by proposals for a specially obnoxious form of taxation, which is exceedingly disagreeable to the people of the whole of the province. [Applause.] I verily believe it was not the extent to which you were asked to contribute to educational purposes in this province that was so disagreeable to you, as the fact you were asked to place yourselves in the position of indulging in an obnoxious fjrm of taxation. And you were told that you had the choice either of seeing your children uneducated, or of submitting to taxation, and we find in the island to which we gave £BB,OOO that only £51,000 was being expended. Then came the demand from all portions of the colony—and from this province as well, and especially, I think I may say—the question of why the license fees which were raised in the various towns and districts should not be expended for local purposes. We ask ourselves why that should not be. Were we not congratulating ourselves upon a socalled local form of government which was a veritable sham, and which was not a local but a centralising form government 1 In Otago the license fees are the property of the towns, and cities, and districts where they are raised. In Auckland everything goes into one.common purse where you arc unable to trace out the expenditure. Now during the time I am speaking of there was raised in Auckland no less than £13,000 from l-icense fees; and the goldfields revenue was £14,000. There is no distinct form of revenue. In fact, as was stated in the House very forcibly by a speaker, the Provincial Government, which owed its origin to the recognition of the question, how desirable it was to have a localised form of government, degenerated to a form of government of a most central nature. The last financial year was a year of very great prosperity, and it enabled the Colonial Treasurer to come down with a lavish disposition of the results of that prosperity, and to meet the various wishes of the provinces and their wants, enormous grants were proposed to be made out of the consolidated revenue. The capitation allowances for the colony were proposed to be met by a grant to the extent of £241,000; for special allowances, £40,000, and of the latter sum £25,000 was for a special allowance to the province of Auckland. I must say that I observed with some regret afterwards that a powerful speaker at a public meeting seemed to carry away his hearers by the assertion that the special grant of £25,000 was an affront to the province of Auckland. [Applause.] Well, these are affronts which I am bound to say other provinces are very willing to accept—[laughter]—and which it is to be hoped you will become more reconciled to if your need should make you require them. [Applause.] Well, there was a special allowance of £40,000 ; there was an advance to Auckland of £40,000, to Nelson £OO,OOO, and other items which it is unnecessary for me to record, but which amounted in all to the enormous sum of £381,000 out of the consolidated revenue. PROVINCIAL MALADxMINISTKATION. Now, I ask you to recollect that our primary reason for the abolition of the provinces in this island was to give you institutions which are working most satisfactorily in other provinces of the other island. If you go to Otago and Canterbury, you cannot fail to admire their educational institutions and their whole form of government. One great object is to bring you up to the same standard as Otago and Canterbury. Why should the children of Auckland be less well educated than the children of Otago and Canterbury? You are all colonists, and there are certain institutions which you have a right to share, and to ask to be equally good; and it is because we want to give you as good institutions as those of Otago and Canterbury that we propose to make this change Now, puttiug on one pide the question of practicability, I tell you that all the sentiment of ephemeral nature is not to be compared to this fact, that year after year you are allowing your children under your present system to grow up less well educated than they are growing up in other parts of the country. That fact should outweigh with you every other consideration. And it is the same with other institutions. The lunatic asylum here, for instance, is a disgrace to the colony, and there are other institutions which it is most distinctly said the colony is ready to insist shall be carried on in a satisfactory manner, and if the present form of provincial government is unequal to this duty, it is a duty which the colony owes to the colonists to see that they shall be properly carried out. [Cheers.] When these provinces are dissolved, and you are secure at any rate of this, it becomes the duty of the colony to see that the ordinary services, such as educational, charitable institutions, harbors, police, &c, are properly carried out, and yon will at any rate have something more than you have at present. Yoa have now public works from one v.uil of the island to the other. You have everything you require in this respect, and these public works will increase. You will have this island settled from one end to the other. Von will have conimunicatums through from Auck-

laud to Wellington. You will have much of this island, which is now a sealed book, thrown open, and it is almost impossible to be too sanguine or to estimate all that will result when you come gradually to know more about the island than you do at present. It will come in the natural order of things. But are the institutions to which I have referred to be carried on in the same manner as they have been ? Are we to have year after year that harassing sore—that question of whether there shall be education, and whether there shall be special taxation, or whether one is to be abandoned or the other 1 When we bring the institutions of this island to as an efficient state as those in other parts of the colony, I am not at all sure that those other parts of the colony may not say that they prefer what we are doing in this island to what they have done. In fact, it will be a race. The advantages of abolishing the proviuces are these: In the first instance, you do away with provincial provisions, which are altogether unsuitable and unmeaning. The moment the question of settling the middle of this island is attempted to be dealt with, provincial provisions will be over, not only their servitors, but their inconveniences. Whenever you approach to the boundaries of the provinces in the interior of the island, you have settlement shut out by reason of the fear of one province, that it might be expending its money for the benefit of another province. [ Applause.] Whenever you come to the question for settling this island, the inconvenience of provincial boundaries inevitably presents itself. Now you will do away with that, and you will substitute the thorough reform of local government, which may not be in name, but in reality, a power to the people dispersed throughout the provinces of the island of governing their own local affairs. You who live in towns, may not think much of that which is so anxiously asked for by districts which are being settled in the interior of the country. And let me tell you this, that the success of Auckland as a city will depend on the success of the out settlements. The success of Dunedin as a city, depended on its out settlements. It is because local self-government has been devised throughout that province that it has been so prosperous, and Auckland will K be prosperous in proportion, and these out-districts will not be prosperous until they have not the sham but the reality of local self-government. THE LAND FUND. —DISPOSITION OF REVENUE. Now, when the Government included in the resolutions the condition that the compact of 1856 should be respected, we really and thoroughly meant that, and I again tell you most distinctly, and those who have an acquaintance with other parts of the colony will bear me out, that anything more chimerical, anything more approaching to mere sentiment, than the idea that you are going to make ordinary colonial revenue of the land fnnd of the colony could not be conceived. I have already said, aud I believe it, that such a bargain would be a bad one for you—that be it bad or good, the thing is not practicable. Things have obtained to such a condition in different parts of the colony, that it is not possible. Were there no compact of 1856 in the question at all, it would still, 1 undertake to say, not be found desirable to mix up the laud revenue with the ordinary revenue of the colony : it would still be desirable to set apart the land revenue for particular purposes, and prevent it being mixed up with such ordinary revenue. [Applause.J When the Middle Island members have asked " What security arc we to have for our land revenue?" I have answered, " You have two securities—you have the security that when the colony takes in charge the provinces of this island, the time will not be very far distant when the North Island itself will most bitterly oppose the amalgamation of the land revenues of the two islands." And we will make such a disposition of the land revenue that it will not be long before the Middle Island will say, " That is a disposition which suits us, and we should like to follow the same example." [Applause.] I must tell you that, whilst there is in the Middle Island for the land fund being preserved for special purposes —for public works, emigration, and so on—there is still a very widespread feeling—l will not say of dissatisfaction, but of a disposition to question whether such disposition might not be made more satisfactorily. And there is a very strong feeling also growing up in the Middle Island that the endeavours which Superintendents make to persuade people the land fund and its expenditure are identical with the provinces and the Executives have no meaning. There is a very strong doubt felt on that point, and you must not think this experiment is one which will not be looked upon with very great interest, aud with a feeling that the time must come, and very rapidly, when they would like to follow the same example. I have said, and I say it again, that if we adopt the course we propose to do, and put piovincialism upon its trial iu other parts of the colony, and if the colonial charge could prove more satisfactory, the result cannot be doubted. Now, therefore, I say, that if that compact, which some say is not of a binding nature, did not exist, it would still be for the interests of this island, and it would still be the policy of any Government that dealt with this matter in a statesmanlike manner—l say it would still be the policy to set apart this land for defined purposes and within defined areas The question is how the laud revenue is to expended, and if we hit upon a satisfactory manner of disposing of the land revenue of this island, we find the means by which the South Island will also arrive at a similar result. I am not here to-night to enter into details which are not absolutely fixed, and which I say must only be looked upon as an indication of the direction iu which we propose to go. I say this, that we look upon it that the land fund of the provinces of this island should be put apart for purposes such as these. It should be set apart for payment of the interest aud sinking fund on provincial loans ; it should be put apart for educational and charitable institutions, and a part of the land fund should be applied iu subsidising the road districts throughout the province—and substantially subsidising them, and that then the land revenue shall be voted by Parliament partly for district works and partly for colonial works. When I speak of district works, I mean works suitable to groups of road boards, and that when it is very difficult to draw a line between work of a purely district nature, and of a purely colonial nature. For example, a harbour might be a work which would .solely be of benefit to a small group of road boards, or to a district. It, may lie a work of a colonial nature —a work which will be useful to a great many districts—so with I

branch railways. A branch railway may pass through one district only, or it may connect district after district, and although it is a branch railway, it may be just as much suitable as a colonial work as a main line of railway. There can be no doubt that the capitation allowances which are made by the colony will go a long way, if not altogether, towards supporting these institutions, for which I have so strongly contended you have the right to insist should be put on an excellent footing. As for licenses, I say no more than this : that I shall be very much disappointed if the Government are not able, most distinctly, to make local revenue of the licensing fees, and place at the disposition of the towns and districts the expenditure of such revenue. I may say this also in respect to the goldfields revenue : We consider that the revenue raised within the goldfields should be ;expended within the goldfields. [Applause.] I ask you to allow me to say a few words as to the course we propose to take in preparing this measure. We are bent on making it a satisfactory one, and we recognise the fact that it can only be made satisfactory if we'replace Provincial Governments by a much more intimate local system, and we are determined to do our best in that direction ; and with that view we have arranged that the Bill shall be prepared by one of the ablest barristers in the country, a man with a reputation of a colonial nature. We have stipulated before the Bill has been prepared this gentleman shall visit every road district and shall personally confer with all the chairmen, and make himself acquainted with all the wants of the road districts; That shows our desire to ascertain the features of this island that require to be dealt with. I take leave to think we shall have a very large knowledge of the subj ect before the House meets next year.