PUBLIC MEETING

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 806, 21 July 1870, Page 3

PUBLIC MEETING

TO CONSIDER THE FINANCIAL PROPOSALS OE THE GOVERNMENT. A public meeting, called by plaeard, was held in the Council Chamber on the evening of Monday last, July 18, " to consider the financial proposals of the Government." Mr H. S. Tipeen was voted to the chair, and opened the proceedings. The subject to be brought before the meeting was one

on which considerable diversity of opinior existed, and lie trusted that every one com ing forward would receive a patient hear i rigMr A'Deane then came forward to mov£ the Srst resolution. Little more than 12 months since the people of this Province were in a state of chronic alarm. We had a powerful and well-armed enemy within our borders, and we never retired to oui beds without the fear of being aroused bv an alarm. Many of us had been called on to sacrifice our time as soldiers, and had gone out on expeditions to defend our hearths and homes. He admitted that the gentlemen then in office had displayed considerable ability and were men of probiiy ; but they were not equal to the occasion. We might now flatter ourselves that the right men were in the right place. We had only now to look around to see how much our condition had improved since that time. We viere bleat with a country of inexhaustible resources, requiring ou:y the hand of man for their development ; but crippled as we were from a long struggle with a foe not to be despised,— with the imposition on our shoulders of a heavy burden of debt and tax afim, —it would be idle to look for auy extrication from our difficulties without external aid. The country was capable of maintaining a large population, and only required population and capital to develope i»s resources, and make it the Great Britai iof the South. JSow was our time to take ac 1 vantage of the restored confidence in the mother country, to obtain funds and population. In Great Britain there was an ovevteeming population, who were even now importing their meat and their breadstuffs from these colonies. At this present time we were sending our raw material to K.igland to be worked up,-and re-import ing it at great expense, which we would v:ot be required to do if the country were well populu-ed. Under these circumstance? it wats evident that if a well-organised and wt'ii-duested scheme of borrowing were and carried into riFcct by honor abb; and judicious men, the Colony must be.k lit by it, though it have to carry a larger burden. In fact, when we canuto consider our undeveloped resources, we might safely double our esi-fing burdens, and have a f<dr chance of liquidating them. He hud heard it said that by so doing we should be burdening posterity ; but this was no teal argument against the scheme. We had all succeeded to the burden of the national debt of Great Britain, but with it we had succeeded to the advantages which that debt had produced ; but in this case it was not unreasonable to suppose that in J he course of the development of the country and its increasing pro perity, free ourselves from oui* burdens within our own life-time. He trusted the resolution he was now about to move would be favorably entertained. It embodied a general approval of the financial scheme ol t:ie Government, with a suggestion of some modification as to amount. He would not detain the meeting longer, as no doubt many others would address .them on the' subject, and he now had much pleasure in moving the first resolution :

That, iu the opinion of this meeting, the first duty of the Government is to take measures for the rescue of the colony from the stagnation that has followed the lengthened Maori troubles, and the gi eat depression iu value of its most important staple products. That a carefully conducted stream of immigration would tend to reduce average taxation, and further the development of the colony's resources; and, if promoted in conjunction with a system of useful public works, so as to afford employment to the labor to he introduced, until such labor could be absorbed in ordinary pursuits, would be productive of great public benefit. That this meeting appreciates the efforts of the Government to further those ends by their financial proposals; and as it is manifest that the capi tal of the colony must be supplemented from without, they approve the raising of a loan for the purposes named, with such modieations as to its amount, and the terms on which it is raised, as may be arrived at by the deliberations of the House of llepresen'atives.

Mr T. K. Newton seconded the resolution. Ho had come totally unprepared, the seconding of the molion having been committed to a gentleman who had since found himself unable to attend. Although he had seen the financial statement he had not been able to puy much attention to it, and was not therefore prepared to criticise it. All present would be aw-Ave that the scheme was to raise £10,000,000 in ten years, to be devoted to immigration and public works. Of course it would be for the public to decide whether it would be prudent to spend so large a sum in so short a time ; for his own pare he believed that without very considerable modification the scheme would be unacceptable to the Colony as a whole. Still, as regarded the great principles of progress, of developing the resources of the country—we were all agreed, and could all meet on common ground. We were all heartily tick of our present state of stagnation, and would all support a policy that would lead to better things. [Hear, hear, and applause.]