Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. SATURDAY, JULY 15, 1871.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1069, 15 July 1871, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. SATURDAY, JULY 15, 1871.

When persons holding prominent positions in the Government of the Colony —whethei it be that of a section merely or of the whole—come forward and publicly give utterance to their views, the sentiments they utter aie not only of interest and importance to the audience more immediately addressed, but must be regarded as of almost equal weight to the rest of the community. Of this character is the well-studied and lucid address recently given before a Thames auditory by his Honor Mr T. B. Gillies, Superintendent of Auckland Province, and which we briefly alluded to yesterday as being fully reported in an Auckland paper of the next morning. As is well known, Mr Gillies occupies the somewhat unpopular position of an independent and consistent opponent of the scheme of wholesale borrowing adopted as the policy of the present (general Government. He U unpopular because opposed to the interests of that numerous pai'ty which hopes to secure

a personal advantage in the general scramble which it is anticipated ■will ensue for the borrowed millions during ' the time their distribution will last, > but regardless of the ultimate conseqnences to the Colony; and because of his taking these necessary consequences into bis calculation as an essential ele i i ment in hia estimation of the whole question. It is not, therefore, matter of surprise if we find that his address, whether referring to this or kindred subjects, is made a target for the shafts of wholesale criticism. The subject of his address was " Our system of Government," and was, as he remarked, a large subject—embracing, as it did, not merely the local or provincial system, but that of the entire General Government of the Colony. The subject was very abty handled, though, perhaps, from the personal connection Mr Gillies has sustained with one or other department of it from its first inauguration eighteen years ago, that was only what we might have expected from him. Our purpose now is to give our readers an outline of his interesting address. When the Constitution Act was first promulgated—in the year 1853—he said, the Provincial system was, in fact, the only one that could have been satisfactory to the Colony. Six almost isolated communities were in existence, differing in interests, in pursuits, and, for the most part, even in nationality. In fact, the actual state of affairs at that time was correctly described lry Mr Fox, who referred to the several communities as the "six colonies of ISTew Zealand. 1 ' But if they were diverse then, the time was to come when a different state of things should prevail—when, from the spreading from these centres, from frequent communication by sea and land, the six should become one. To further this object and £>rovide for it, a general legislature was given, as well as the six local ones ; and this General Government, it was intended, should gradually absorb the powers of the others. The provision in the Constitution Act for effecting this purpose was that the legislation of the General Assembly should over-ride that of the Provincial Councils, and that its enactments, when made, should supersede the Provincial laws. This, however, failed in practice to be the result, because the very men constituting the general legislature were those who also composed those of the several provinces, and thus the General Assembly proved rather " a body of re preventatives of rival states, jealously guarding their respective powers, than a body of representatives deliberating upon and devising measures for the general good of the Colony as a whole." In tracing the most salient points of the history of the two systems of Government, Mr Gillies showed that as early as 1856 finance had been the "turning point of the future." It was then that the policy of borrowing, which has since been so steadily pursued, was inaugurated. Half-a-million was the sum then authorised, and its purpose was—l. To pay off the N T e\v Zealand Company's debt, ~£200,000 ; 2. Other debts, ,£120,000 ; 3. The purchase of native lands, .£IBO,OOO. At this time, tlien, the total debt of the Colony was only £320,000, or £6 2s 6d per head of ; the population. The debt of the New Zealand Company was included in the : above. The responsibility of this was, however, undertaken by the Southern Island, and, as an equivalent, the j Southern provinces received their waste lands free of charge, from which they have since realised three millions and-a- . half sterling. The Northern Island : took the responsibility of the £IBO,OOO

with which to acquire an estate from the natives, but, instead of which, it was ■ utterly frittered away by the department, and no equivalent estate . acquired. The first blow received bv ' Provincialism was in 1858, when the New Provinces Act was passed, and

three more Provincial Governments ! were added to the list. Native matters chiefly occupied the,session of 1860, the Taranaki rebellion then raging. In 1862 responsibility in native matters was granted. In 1863 the Waikato war broke out, and the Ministry which then took office had to deal with a conflict that had already assumed large dimensions. In treating with this difficulty the Colony, unwisely as it has proved, obtained a loan of £3,000,000, which did not effect the desired end of settling the native difficulty, one-half of it having been spent on objects foreign to the intentions contemplated. Provincial borrowings as going on all this at length all the several debts, General and Provincial, were consolidated at a cost oi some ,£BO,OOO or so to the Colony. "Steadily we gob into debt on one pretext or another until at last the interest on our debts was being paid out of borrowed money." In 1870 the great Yogel borrowing scheme was launched. Circumstances have proved favorable to its being carried out, and the borrowing part of it has hitherto proved a success; but it rests with the future to show whether we shall thereby be able to better and easier sustain our increased burdens. " My observation," Mr Gillies remarked, "has led me to believe that always v hen an individual borrows more money to enable him to pay the interest on his existing debt he has simply booked his passage prepaid into the Bankruptcy Court; and the laws regulating individual transactions hold good as regards the transactions of communities." The several provincial governments have followed the example of the General Government, and all of them have borrowed; the provincial share of the consolidated debt of 7|- millions (exclu sive of the new Yogel debt) being fully £3,000,000. But there is this difference—the provinces have at least something to show for their share, although much of it has been spent unwisely; but the General Government has sunk its share in the unsettled native difficulty. Borrowing has not, however, saved the provinces : Southland has ceased to exist; Otago has hitherto survived the financial storms that lower around her, thanks to her magnificentlanded estate and productive gold fields; Canterbury, too, still manages to .surmount her financial troubles; Marlborough has well-nigh subsided from public notice ; Nelson, rid of her landed estate, waits for what may turn up; Wellington, hopelessly bankrupt; Mawke's Bay, though solvent, stationary, and covetous of portions of Auckland's patrimony; Taranaki, as ever, living on the compassion of the rest of the colony; Auckland—but lately prostrate, at the last gasp of financial exhaustion—now, thanks to her wonderful goldfields, in probably the best position of all, if only removed from under the paralysing paw of the Gene ral Government. Such is the present state of die provinces ; while, as regards the Colony, its debts have increased from .£320,000 —which aim included the New Zealand Company's debt—to £7,500,000, or ,£3O per head, actual, and ten millions more in prospect. Our taxation has increased from £150,000 to ,£1,540,000, or near £7 per head per annum ; native and defence expenditure from £15,000 or £16,000 to £128,000, whilst the natives have decreased from

56,000 to 34,000. Our civil servants have increased to an almost countless horde; and on r pension list to Ml 1,677, with unknown rights accrued, even if we coul<£ stop their increase now, The landed' estate has been alienated, and the confiscated lands of the Colony managed or mismanaged by a General Government which ignores all liability (o aid in educational or public works; goldfielcls mismanaged by delegation to irresponsible parties : the Natives mismanaged by flour, sugar, and Taihoa ; several of the Provinces all but bankrupt; others having their vitality drained by General Government extravagance,—all of which cannot be gainsaid. The heads of this Hydra are shewn, not to cause despondency, but to arouse to a sense of duty and responsibility in crushing it; to aid by votes and voices those .representatives who will dare to stem the tide of officialdom and advocate retrenchment and reform, but who are powerless unless backed by public opinion. We have followed Mr Gjllies to that portion of his address in whieh he discusses the obvious question, " Where is the cure." Our space to-day is exhausted, and we must defer the analysis of the remainder to another occasion.