The Globe. TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 1877.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 865, 3 April 1877, Page 2

The Globe. TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 1877.

The bankrupt condition of the Province of Auckland has for years been a matter of notoriety throughout the colony. She has been unable to pern form the most ordinary duties of Government, and for many years the principal occupation of her provincial administrators has been to exercise their ingenuity in extracting sums from the colonial purse for her own necessities. She has always been quoted as the frightful example by speakers when wishing to show the absolute necessity of abolishing provincial governments altogether. But Auckland politicians have always displayed an amazing confusion of ideas as to what really was hers, and what belonged to the colony. The latest instance of this is contained in the following paragraph which wo cut from a late number of the Auckland Star. It reads as follows: — “ It has pleased the advocates of abolition to speak of Auckland as a bankrupt province. A statement of receipts and disbursements for the quarter ending 31st December, 1876, published in a New Zealand Gazette to hand by the steamer Hotorua to-day, shows that at the end of the year, when the General Government finally took charge, there was a balance to the credit of Auckland in the provincial branch of the public account amounting to £31,512 6s 3d. What is going to he done zoith this pretty little sum after it finds its way into the “ maelstrom of colonial finance ?" Auckland with a credit balance of £31,512 6s 3d ! When we turn, however, to the statement relerted to, this astonishing state of affairs is easily explained, The total revenue of the province for the quarter ended December 31st, is put clown at £62,987 5s lid, but of this sum the “ general revenue of the colony” contributes £51,1613s Id. And yet our contemporary would have us believe that poor Auckland stood in danger of being robbed of a paltry £31,000, which thanks to the colony, she finds herself possessed of on December 31st. The people of Dunedin have naturally been considerably excited by the arrival of the Gloucester, on board of which there had been a number of cases of smallpox. It is not our intention in this article to comment upon the incapacity displayed by the authorities on this occasion. Thanks to the energy shown by the public in Dunedin the colony has been saved from a visitation of this dreaded disease, but the excitement will vve hope result in the “ Public Health Act” being strictly euforced. Under it the Governor has power to appoint public vaccinators, who have to perform vaccination gratuitously, and the parent ol every child born in New Zealand, muse within six months cause his child to be vacinated under a penalty not exceeding forty shillings. It is well known that a considerable percentage ot children throughout the colony have uever been vacinated. This is to iuiuu extent the result of carelessBat there also exists on the .art of many a deep rooted prejudice u . uiust vaccination. This cau only trom igumauce of the frightful

scourge small-pox once was, and the complete change vaccination has brought about since it cnraeinto general use. The time was when this terrible disease was scarcely ever absent from the cities and villages of the old country, and few families in town or country escaped without one or more of its members falling a. victim to this loathsome disease. Vaccination has altered all this ; and yet there are many so blinded by prejudice, and ignorant fear, as to endanger the of the community by refusing to have their children vaccinated. If the consequences fell only upon themselves and t heir families, it would be (tad enough, but when the health of the community at large is positively endangered, it is only right that the law should step in and interfere.