The Globe. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1877.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 832, 22 February 1877, Page 2

The Globe. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1877.

The recent speech delivered by Mr. Stevens at the Oddfellows’ Hall, to the electors of the City of Christchurch, is the subject of an article in the Lyttelton Times of this morning. Our contemporary professes to be much dissatisfied with what fell from the speaker. He expected, he says, proof of the “ manifold advantages of the new system,” but he rose from the perusal of the speech “ not one whit wiser or happier than before.” We are sorry to learn this. But we can hardly regard it as the duty of the member for the city of Christchurch to devote his time to the instruction and amusement of our lugubrious contemporary. Nor in our opinion is Mr. Stevens called upon at this time of the day to place before the public the manifold advantages of the new system. He did so at the time of his election, and he was returned to Parliament because his views on this and other points were in accord with those of the electors of the city. It would, therefore, have been a sheer waste of time to have repeated the arguments used when the question was still before the country.

Let us now turn to the arguments used by the Lyttelton Times against abolition. In professing to give its readers statements of fact, telling against the abolition of the provinces, our contemporary has not scrupled to deliberately mislead them—unless indeed its misrepresentations are due to ignorance—-which is not only possible, but probable. Amongst many instances of misstatement -vo will take the following, as specimens : The Lyttelton Times says that the question of the settlement of the “future tenure of the pastoral property of the province” has been by the carrying of abolition “transferred” from the Provincial Council to the House of This is

untrue. The Provincial Councils never had the pov;er of making a land law at all. The most they could do was to carry resolutions to which the Assembly could give the form of law if it chose. As a matter of fact, the Assembly has habitually exercised its own judgment in the matter, and overruled the wishes of the Provincial Councils. In the case of the Otago Waste Lands Acts this has been very often done, and in the case of Canterbury material alterations have before now been made. No justification odd be found for any newspaper who tries, for party purposes, to make the public believe that the passing of land laws for any province belonged to the Provincial Council of that province. The next misstatement is gross in the extreme. The Lyttelton Times says that “ in the old days we had undisturbed possession and complete control of the land fund.” The “ old days ” of course means before the Abolition of Provinces Act became law. “ We” had nothing of the sort. “ Undisturbed possession and complete control” of the land fund has never belonged to the Provincial Councils since 1867, when by the Public Revenues Act the land fund was made liable to be charged by the Colonial Treasurer with not only the expenses of Receivers, but also with any balance that might appear to the debit of the province in the Colonial Treasurer’s books, on the monthly account being made up. Such debits frequently occurred even amongst the wealthier provinces. The next fabrication of this truthful “leader of public opinion” is that “ though the balance of the land fund is nominally secured to the district whence it arises, it is actually shared by those districts throughout the colonies (? provinces) which have no land fund, inasmuch as the whole colony becomes liable for monies borrowed to supplement their deficiencies.” This is utterly untrue. What takes place is that if a provincial district has not enough land fund to meet the charges placed on the land fund of the district, the deficiency is met out of the consolidated fund of the colony, to which all the population, including that of the deficient districts, contributes. How it can be true that under this arrangement “ districts which have no land fund share the land fund ” of those which possess one, is not easy to see, save for those who are utterly blinded by party spirit. It is indeed disgraceful that a public print, seeking the position of a guide and instructor of the people, should thus use its power to distort facts, and deceive its readers.