THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 1874

Grey River Argus, Volume XIV, Issue 1800, 13 May 1874, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 1874

Although the Provincial Council of Nelson was opened on the sth inst. we are only now placed in possession of the Superintendent's speech. It is not woith while to publish it mi e-xtenso, and we shall content ourselves with giving our readers a summary of it. . The speech, which has at least the merit of brevity, commences by stating that the annual account of the Provincial Treasurer "shows a slight improvement in the receipts of revenue " as compared with those of last year, and that his Honor thinks, that there is a " fair reason to believe that the improvement will be both permanent and progressive." But then a regret is expressed that " the accounts of the Province are conspicuous for the almost entire absence" of a revenue from the sales of land, the only means of providing which rests with the General Assembly in placing the Province in a position to complete those main lines of communication without which the lands of the interior of the Province cannot be made available for permanent settlement. The explanation of the non-effect given to the resolution of the Council authorising the Superintend dent to obtain an advance of £60,000 in anticipation of the proposed loan amounts to this : — that after the difficulty which had arisen between che Provincial Government of Wellington and the General Government with* regard to the. legality of advances in anticipation of a loan not. yet authorised by Parliament, the Superintendent thought it desirable to " suspend action" (as he generally does) until he had ascertained the views of the General Government upon the subject. The result of the consultations his Honor had with the Ministry led him to " abandon the intention to raise the sum," on the ground that to prosecute it would endanger the success of the proposed application to Parliament for a loan of £250.000. But he accepted an advance of £20,000 for the completion of the main road connecting the Upper Buller with the port of Nelson, "in order to render tho blocks of land reserved for special settlement available for that purpose." The Council is informed that a portion of this work js_ already ,in...P?.ogress.. A avjd vt fcJi§& for as soon as possible. The measures to be submitted to the Couucil are stated to be— A Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Bill ; a Bill to give secuiity for the cost of construction and maintenance of a railway from Westport to Ngakawhau ; and one to enable the Superintendent to hand over the Nelson Water and Gas Works to the Corporation of that City. It is also proposed to submit resolutions for c msolidating into one Act the various laws regulating the sale and leasing of the Waste Lands of the Province^ Reference is made to the. fact that the General Government has accepted tenders for the construction of thu Huchstetter Water Race, which it is hoped " will prove the means of giving profitable employment to a large number of gold miners in the Grey Valley," and the speech concludes by complimenting the Council upon the formation of a public company to work the Para-Para and Collingwood iron and coal fields, and the completion of the railway survey from Foxhill to Brunnerton.

We have little to remark upon the Speech. We may say, however, that the Superintendent probably acted wisely in not jeopardising the chance of obtaining the Loan of £250,000 by accepting the power given to him by the Council to obtain an advance of £60,000 in anticipation thereof. But surely his Honor ahould.hav.e.recogniaed.the position at the time the Council passed the resolution. But it is Mr Curtia's policy to trim. He always has done so, and cannot help it. He professes to bend to the Council, he allows and encourages it to pass " bogus" resolutions, self-satisfied that whilst it pleases the Council and keeps things pleasant during the session, they can be neglected or upset at discretion afterwards. This sort of thing is the kind of statecraft of which Mr Curtis is an accomplished professor, but it is not a course of action calculated to create or maintain any confidence in his administration of the Province. One other thing Mr Curtis is celebrated for — his intense affection for the City of Nelson and its surrounding territory, and another instance of this is seen in his arranging with the General Government that the only advance he could get from the Colonial Treasury — £20,000— should be expended in completing the communication between Nelson and the Upper Buller, where there is no likelihood of traffic, and entirely ignoring the absolute necessities of the rich mining district of the Inangahua, in respect to tl c completion of the road between Square Town and the Junction, Such policy is sickeninfic to those «ho know the absolute requirements of the Province, and repog=niae that the first duty of a Government is to provide for the wants of an existing population rather than to enter upon speculativb w)rkß for the. purpose of furthering the moonshiny "special settlements," of which so much nonsense is said and written.