SPEECH OP SUPERINTENDENT OF AUCKLAND AT THE OPENING OF THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 285, 11 May 1875, Page 2

SPEECH OP SUPERINTENDENT OF AUCKLAND AT THE OPENING OF THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

[By Telegraph.] Auckland, May 10. The Superintendent opened the Council at three this afternoon. In his speech, he referred with regret to the death of Mr Williamson, and hoped to be able during the session to make some fitting recognition of his services and devotion, which were unsurpassed by any other man in the colony. He hoped to be able to promote the happiness and prosperity of the province. The prosperity of a state depended largely on the finances and upon the maintenance of integrity and punctuality in dealings with the public and individnals. He had therefore directed special attention to the financial position of the province, and found that the Provincial revenue latterly exceeded £15,000 a year. The Goldfields revenue was £10,500, from the General Government they should be entitled t0£17,500 from capitation and special allowance, and the land revenue amounts to £2000; but such large reductions had beeq

made by the General Government that they could not reckon on receiving two-thirds. While the provincial revenue was so small, a large revenue, provincial and general, amounting to £309,056, was raised in the province, making the taxation four pounds twelve shillings per head of the entire population. To that each small farmer or laborer with his wife and four children contributed twenty-seven pounds twelve shillings yearly from taxation towards the revenue. He considered the condition of the laborer one of hardship, the taxation being on the necescessaries of life, and falling heavily on the poor; impoverished by this indirect taxation, he is deprived of many comforts which providence entitles him to get. Small pro vision is made from this taxation for education. He next referred to the £40,000 advance from the General Government. Twelve thousand of that advance has been paid, but the Government has refused to carry out the agreement entered into, on the ground that only twenty-four thousand were to be paid in one year, as if it were an annual grant. He wished the Council to consider whether they should accept any further sums on 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 the revenue in future years. Such advances mislead the public, who appear to receive the boon, but this merely causes an increased indebtedness and dependence. No doubt the province had been greatly wronged in its revenues, and be 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 pat to the extravagant expenditure which was effecting their ruin, and that their financial rights of spending themselves the main part of their own revenue, secured to them by the Constitution Act, be at once restored to the province by another enactment of General Government. Fifty thousand pounds were granted to the pumping association. The Government now desired to make this a chaTge on the province. Papers connected with it will be laid on the table for the Council to decide whether it shall assume that liability, and annually vote such portions as the association require. Of the sixty thousand voted for roads north of Auckland, only ten thousand had been placed at the disposal of the province. As the Council were aware the Assembly voted £25,000 for the purchase of a landed estate from the natives of the province. The provincial authorities had never been consulted in the purchases made. He knew nothing of the remuneration given to the land purchasers, but the province had been given 123,926 acres of it. 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 2699 acres were really good agricultural land, 8674 acres were second class, and 96,180 acres land were of no agricultural value whatever. Considerable portions of the land acquired were also embarrassed by a native lease to Europeans for cutting timber, &c. Eeviewingthe whole position they had the extraordinary Bpectacle of Auckland, with all her manifold resources, an industrious population, raising large revenues, making little or no progress. The cause was not difficult to discover. Of all the colonies, Auckland alone possessed no land fund, and notwithstanding that the foresight of the Imperial Government had created a landed estate for the benefit of the European natives of the colony, this fact had impoverished and ruined multitudes of industrious families. The claims of Auckland upon the land fund were a subsisting 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 the adjustment of the payment of interest on the public debt, or some similar means, a method mußt 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 the land fund, although those may now be small. From the purchase made they would see that there was no hope that any land fund of importance could ever be derived from the expenditure of the £250,000. To rely on this as a mode of extricating the province from its difficulties would be unwise. As in the case of the loans mentioned, which he thought should not be recognised, they were being treated as children, He preferred to rest on their actual rights. If the large debt they owe 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 in detail to the revenue of £309,086 derived from the province, and endeavored to show that after all that was owing for gaols and Courts of Justice, £250,000 was taken from the province to spend elsewhere. This was a difficult thing to remedy. He reviewed the revenue of the colony, showing that of the estimated total of £1,450,000, the interest absorbed £850,000, leaving but a bare margin for making reductions, and although a large saving might, and should be effected in the extravagant system, yet this divided among the provinces would reduce by very little the burdens of the inhabitants. It might be said that additional taxation must be imposed, but the limit of profitable taxation had already been reached in the direction already adopted. It was very doubtful if further taxation in that direction would much increase the revenue, whilst it certainly would greatly diminish the com forts and progress of the inhabitants of the province. The income realised from the railroads when completed, would do much towards paying the interest on the debt; but the cost of maintenance and repairs for several years would be so large compared with the possible traffic on such railroads, that but a very small margin of profit, if any, would be available for public purposes. The plan that appeared to hold out the greatest hope of a considerable increase in the revenue was an attempt by largely reducing the present system of taxing, to lower the cost of clothing and the prime necessaries of life. This would relieve the mass of the people from the heavy burdens which now impeded their industry and limited their comforts. Small farmers and the inhabitants of the country districts would then be able to carry on operations, freed from some of the burdens by which they were now overweighted. But even when this was done, it would still be necessary to have recourse to a system of taxation by which wealth would be required to contribute to the necessities of the State, to the extent which bore some proportion to the value of their property, He believed

that in this way a larger revenue would be realised from Customs and ordinary taxation than is obtained under the present heavy rates of duty, and that commerce and trade would revive and increase, whilst the amounts obtained from taxes, to which those realising large fortunes were forced to contribute, would form a valuable addition to the revenue. Referring to immigration, he contrasted the number of immigrants sent to Auckland with those to Otago and Canterbury, and thought them small as compared with the liability incurred on their account. The Governor had recently by order restricted the powers of legislation conferred upon Provincial Councils by the Constitution Act. He was not satisfied that these orders could be lawfully issued, and had raised doubts on the points which had caused orders to be suspended, pending the solution of the question. Correspondence on the subject would be laid before them. Any representations by the Council relative to Mr Vogel's abolition resolutions would receive due consideration. The system of education was working well. The cost during the year was £20,000. The subject would be brought before them in greater detail. He proposed to ask them to make provision for the ordinary provincial services for a period of six months from the Ist of July to 31st of December, 1875. In the meantime the General Assembly would have met, and then they would understand the future financial prospects more clearly than they can at present. The amount of legislation they would be asked to perform would be but small, consisting chiefly in amendments of Acts.