GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 355, 2 August 1875, Page 2

GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

HOUSE OP REPRESENTATIVES. THE ABOLITION SCHEME. [By Telegraph.] Wellington, July 31. We are indebted to the Government, for the following telegram :—The following is the text of the Treasurer’s speech which explained the effects of the new scheme on Canterbury and Auckland;— “ I will now as shortly as possible put before the committee the financial effect the proposed changes will have upon the municipalities, road boards, and other public institutions in the provinces of Auckland and Canterbury. I have selected these two provinces, the one as representing those provinces which are practically unable to perform the duties of governing, and the other as being the most favorably affected by the proposed change. It will be admitted on all sides that the present financial position of the province of Auckland is a public scandal, and the continuance of such a state of things as now exists there, ought not to be permitted. The necessity for a remedy is imperative and immediate. It is for this House to determine what that remedy shal be, and how it can be best applied. The people of Auckland require to be placed in a position of financial independance and the proposals of the Government will satisfy that demand. The province as a whole will be provided with all necessary institutions of a provincial character. Its police, gaols harbors, lunatic asylums, and educational establishments, will be provided for out of the revenue of the colony, and its larger public works will also become matters of colonial concern. The cities will receive the revenues arising from auctioneers’, publicans’, and other licenses for trading within its boundaries, together with a contribution equal to the rates counted up to one shilling in the £. The out-districts will receive the revenue from publicans and trading licences within their boundaries, the tolls on roads and bridges, and a contribution equitable to £2 for every one collected as rates. Under prudent local management each of these communities can secure its own independence, and it will have an income growing with its growth, and adequate to its own wants. The Thames will no longer be governed by, or dependent on the city of Auckland, but will have the administration of its own funds, the out-districts, such as Tauranga, Waikato, and the Bay of Islands, receiving, besides the items of income referred to above, in addition to £2 for each £ collected by rates, will possess larger and more certain means for improving their several districts than they have ever yet enjoyed. I have no doubt that the City Council of Auckland with the aid of the license fees collected in their city and a contribution equal in amount to their ordinary rate, could govern themselves without the aid of a Superintendent and Provincial Council. I believe that the citizens of the Thames would accept the same obligation on the some terms; and, as an old country settler, I know well what the outlying districts will say to proposals which give them the means of real local self government. The proposal which I have explained above with regard to the provincial debts when applied to Canterbury will place that province in an extraordinarily favourable position. Speaking broadly, most of her public debt will be cancelled, leaving her land fund free for public works within the districts besides having all necessary departments o£ Government carried on as now. Christchurch will obtain what she has so long contended for, the license fees collected in the city besides the contribution of one pound for one collected by ordinary rates. Now I can easily understand that I may be told that I have proved too much. It will be said that if there is money enough to carry on the provincial districts in so satisfactory a manner, there must be money to carry on the Provincial Governnn nt; but this by no means follows; nor if it did would it be any answer to the proposal of the Government. For in the first place the proposed method of local administration being simpler will be much less costly, and much less wasteful. Secondly, my statement this evening has, I admit, conclusively proved that the revenues of the colony are amply sufficient to meet all its liabilities and provide efficient government, yet the experience of the last twenty years has shown that with the present provincial constitution it has been practically impossible for the General Assembly to distribute the revenue equitably so as to meet the requirements of the people.”