Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1863.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 138, 4 September 1863, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1863.

The first question and the most natural which occurs to the inquisitive stranger upon seeing the enormous sums of money which arc consumed in the paying and maintainance of the public service in this Province is —“ Where does the money come from Truly, a most important question, but one which, in proportion to its importance, is difficult to answer.

That money is got somehow or other, and that that money is as rapidly spent in the same incomprehensible manner, is perfectly deal’. “ Easy got, easy gone, saitli the proverb, which saying, as applied to the case of matters in these parts, is extremely applicable, and most painfully true. Every shilling which it has been found possible to extract out of the Crown Lands has been recklessly spent ; every" inch of our landed estate which was worth buying has been sold, and we have parted with every acre of that land which, had it been properly and prudently managed, would have proved amply sufficient to save us from the impending burden of taxes for many, many years ; eh I probably for generations. Not content with

having been instrumental in this wastefulness, we must, under the Heaven-sent (according to our respectable contemporary) management of our present Superintendent, proceed to borrow more. It was bad enough to spend upon nothing what was really our own with a reckless disregard of the consequences, hut to make matters worse by borrowing a further supply of the wherewithal to continue the same iniquitous gambling game is carrying matters altogether beyond endurance. Is not this Province at this day paying a heavy annual sum as interest upon

a hypothetical debt ? —a sum which carries away more than half our estimated revenue. How, then, with this startling and appalling fact staring him in the face, can Our Superintendent, with the “ advice and consent” of his Executive, have the unconscionable audacity to take steps to add further to this unbearable burden. Rather, he should take steps to diminish it, or remove it altogether. ’Tis the last pound that breaks the camel’s back.

It is most unmistakeably manifest that the model Government which now holds sway in this Province is drawing us headlong to certain extinguishment, and that, with such representatives of public opinion as are to be got out of the present Provincial Council to back them, they do not hesitate to take such a course of action as must inevitably bring us under the tender mercies of the General Government, and thereby blot us from the list of Provinces. Clearly, if Mr. McLean could not settle the question of the ownership of a piece of Maori land, without involving the country in a bloody and expensive war, seeing that he has spent the prime years of his life in the study of that intricate branch of New Zealand affairs, he is not very likely to be able to steer this little Provincial punt without getting it into an equally disastrous mess.

While people anxious to start in the sheepfanning - line are giving very high rents for very inferior lands to the Muories, our Provincial Government allow the lands which belong to the Province to be occupied for the same purpose at a rent so preposterously out of proportion to that demanded by the Natives for their lands, that the whys .and the wherefores of the proceeding are quite beyond the comprehension of ordinary minds. Fancy a run of 10,000 acres of laud letting under the sure and certain tenure of a Government lease for Jt’B or TlO, while a run of no better quality, and not much greater extent, is eagerly taken from the Natives at ten times that rental, regardless of the uncertainty of the tenure and notorious difficulty which always surrounds dealings with that ingenuous people. P>y the new Land Regulations even this small source of revenue is dried up, and we should like to know how on earth His Plonor intends to pay the intei’est of a new loan or debt. We apprehend that he does not anticipate any farther territorial acquirements from the Maories, and we apprehend, also, that if he does anticipate anything in that line, if it should prove no better than his last little transaction, the less we see or hear of it the belter. The Herald cackled like a respectable old hen over that newly-laid piece of diplomacy, but the worst of it was that her egg was most horribly addled. It is, therefore, under these startling circumstances, high time that the voice of the

people was raised against this AGO,OOO loan, for unless that money is spent in buying good and saleable lands, of which there is not the most remote prospect, it will be to our undoing with a vengeance. The very composition of Mr. McLean’s Executive Council, to say nothing of His Honor himself, indicates hopeless extravagance. One member of that august body was a member of Fitz Gerald’s equally august body, and with his “ advice and consent” we all know but too well what happened. Another member is a mere dummy, a mere article, a sort of political peg, upon which any amount of stray matters in the way of “ advice and consent” may be hung without his offering the faintest resistance. Number three member is one of that glorious fraternity of jolly do-nothings whose profound and startling wisdom seldom gets disturbed from a foggy state of helpless languor. Pretty set of fellows these truly to give “ advice and consent.” It is of the most vital importance to the existence of this Province that a regeneration of the Provincial Council should take place. That nest of drowsy drones must be

broken up ; —that assembly of patient flunkeys must be dismissed, and a better set of men must be put in their place,—men who will not be led by the nose, like dancing bears, —men who will not sacrifice the public good upon the altar of their own petty interests, —men who will not allow themselves to be made mere blinds behind which His Honor may carry out his ruinous system of partial and iniquitous favoritism and ruinous policy.